The Mask and the Gun
by Cimz
Summary: In which Julie Williams takes her position as family matriarch very seriously. Seriously enough to fake her little cousin Nick's death, in fact, even while her sister Hope searches for the killer. Chelsea/Nick; Hope/Aiden. In progress.
1. Bribes and Favors

**The Mask and the Gun**

_Nick: What would you say if I asked you to rob a bank for me?_

_Chelsea: I'd say give me the mask and the gun, because I'm there for you. _

_Nick: You know that's not true._

_Chelsea: Yes it is. Because when it comes down to it, I would do anything for you._

_-Days of Our Lives, March 29, 2007_

**Disclaimer**: All characters are property of NBC, Sony, and Corday productions. No profit is being made from this fic.

**Note**: I put off starting this fic for months in the hopes that I would lose interest. I haven't. In my decade in Days internet fandom (okay, it's closer to two decades… leave me alone), I've met perhaps three people I would expect to enjoy this fic. Two of them are no longer active in the Days community. So, yeah. But anyway. Give it a try and back out if it's not your style.

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><p><strong>Part 1: Bribes and Favors<strong>

Julie had spent the entirety of her life making some rather serious mistakes.

The mistake she had made that evening was a particularly glorious one. She'd left Nick alone in the park rather than frog marching him to a restaurant for dinner and Horton family secrets. It was not a mistake her grandmother would have made; of that, Julie was sure.

Luckily, Julie had learned in her life that mistakes themselves were not usually the cause of anyone's downfall. The cause of a fall was worrying about what was already done instead of taking action to change course.

Few people took action the way Julie Olson Banning Anderson Williams Williams Williams took action.

It wasn't hard for Julie to convince the paramedics to let her ride in the ambulance with Nick. It was important for her to be there to let Nick know that he wasn't alone, of course. But it was more important for her to get a jump on whoever it was who had shot Nick.

Julie had looked around the town square when Nick had collapsed bleeding in her arms, pointing at the person who had shot him. She had expected to see horror and fear on every face. Instead, she had seen boredom and relief. Nick wasn't safe. Half of Salem wanted Nick dead, and whether Nick deserved it or not was not Julie's concern. Half of Salem had probably wanted her dead once, too.

"We're taking him straight up to surgery. Skipping the ER," one of the paramedics told her.

She texted her young family members who had stood stone-faced in the Square short moments before: _We're arriving at the ER now._

That would buy her two or three minutes.

Time enough to call Bill's grandson Jeremy and request a plane equipped to transfer a critically wounded patient halfway across the country.

Time enough to call her old friend Senator Levin and ask him to arrange a place at the Smith Center in Fairfax County, Virginia.

Time enough to lay down the law that Nick's doctors were to speak only to her rather than making grand announcements to the family at large that was sure to assemble soon.

Time enough to offer an egregious amount of money to convince a young nurse's assistant to take on a little acting job on the side. Julie hated bribes, in general, and this might well blow up in her face. But if it didn't blow up in her face until Nick's life was saved, she didn't much care.

Soon enough, the waiting room filled with people.

Will and Sonny came in first. "Julie? Are you okay?" asked Will.

It was a perfunctory question, but a troubling one to Julie's newly suspicious mind. "Ask about Nick!" she reprimanded sharply.

"That was my next question," said Will, warm, compassionate, not taking offense where he didn't have to. "What- Is-"

"They just took him into surgery," she obliged, because there was really no way to lie.

"Is there anything I can do for you?"

It was another perfunctory question, and Julie couldn't help but be irritated no matter how good Will's intentions. "I'd like the last two hours back, please. I was going to take him to dinner, and if I had this wouldn't have happened."

"I'm sorry," said Will, and he sounded like he meant it. But Will was the child of one of the biggest liars Salem had ever seen. Will couldn't really be all sweetness and light, as he presented himself, could he?

"I know you two disagreed with him. I know he made mistakes. But he didn't deserve this."

And she walked away before she had to listen to the usual explanation that Will was the good grandson of Bill Horton and Nick was the bad grandson of Marie Horton and obviously good had to defeat evil.

Will resolutely followed her. "Julie? Is there someone you need me to call?"

If only Will knew what calls Julie had made before he'd gotten in her way. But it was time for Julie to start playing the grieving matriarch. She couldn't have Will as suspicious of her as she suddenly was of Will (and Sonny, and Abigail, and the mouth-breather panting over Abigail, and Lucas, and Kate, and Sami, and that snake EJ DiMera). "Jessica. His mother. I don't even know what to say to her."

She glanced at the mouth-breather, finding him a better target than her little cousin Will. "Who are you?" she demanded.

"Abigail's friend. Ben," he introduced himself.

"Did you even know Nick?"

"I met him once or twice."

"And you hated him, too." Julie narrowed her eyes. "Every last one of you hated him. He told me, but I didn't believe him."

Just in time, Julie's newest employee appeared in turquoise scrubs. "Ma'am. We have some forms that need signing."

Julie followed her deep into the bowels of the hospital, where Nick's doctor met her outside a recovery room. "How is he?" Julie demanded.

"His wounds were very severe. A major artery was struck. He coded twice. We revived him."

"And?"

"He survived the surgery and that is a very important first step. His odds only go up from here."

"Is he stable enough to be transferred to another hospital?"

"I would not recommend it."

"He was shot. As long as he remains here, the chance that someone will finish the job is too high."

"We have excellent security," the surgeon pressed.

"You have EJ DiMera on the hospital board. My grandfather built this hospital, and I know he would have been proud of you. You would have been welcome here in any era. But other things have changed. I'll arrange for the transfer. And I will pass the news along to my family."

She turned on her heel and headed back to the waiting room. The nursing assistant followed her like a shadow. "Count to 45 in your head. Then you come out. Just as we arranged." The young woman nodded. "You aren't having second thoughts?" Julie prompted.

"I have four children. One of them has asthma. Every time I miss a shift to sit in the emergency room with him, I get another warning for bad attendance. As if they have people lining up to work the overnight shift." She scoffed. "This one lie could change our lives. It's a risk I'm willing to take."

Julie looked her in the eye. "It's not a risk, darling. It's a sure thing."

Julie sighed inwardly when she saw that Hope had arrived. Lying to her sister- to Doug's daughter- was not a task that she relished. Hope would take Nick's "death" hard; Julie knew that she would.

Julie took Hope's hand in hers. "There hasn't been a word or a bulletin since he went into the operating room," she lied.

"Maybe _you_ could ask, Hope!" Maggie suggested brightly.

Hope looked inclined to do just that, and Julie wondered if her actress had the brains to come out before Hope used her badge to bypass the red tape Julie had tried to create around Nick.

"I'm looking for Mrs. Williams?" a voice piped up.

Julie rushed to her side. "Are you his doctor? Nick's doctor?" The young woman nodded gravely in a fair imitation of the real surgeon. "Well, how is he? How did the surgery go?"

"Mr. Fallon's wounds were very severe. A major artery collapsed. He coded twice. We revived him. But the last time…" The woman trailed off and hung her head.

Privately, Julie had to give her credit for keeping her story close to the truth. She had even avoided the outright lie of saying Nick had died.

"No!" shouted Julie. It worked to keep her family from questioning the pretended doctor more closely. But it also felt good to shout. "No, God, no!" She spun in aimless circles until Maggie grabbed her.

"He was pronounced dead ten minutes ago."

Something inside Julie shivered when the woman finally went all in on the lie. Or perhaps it was the truth? Perhaps Nick really had coded a third time?

"I'm so sorry for your loss," she completed, and would have left had Hope not asked for a minute alone with the body.

Julie kept her head buried in Maggie's shoulder. This would be the greatest test. Unhooking Nick from the machines and praying that his breathing was shallow enough that a seasoned police officer would mistake him for a corpse would not have been Julie's first choice. The room would be dark, and Hope would be grieving, and the power of suggestion was no small thing. Hope had been told that Nick was dead; she was hardly going to take his pulse.

But Julie still held her breath until Hope emerged and said that Julie, Maggie, and Gabi could say goodbye.

The room was so dark that Julie could hardly see. That was right; that meant that Hope would not have been able to see either. A sheet covered most of Nick's body. He lay with his eyes closed and his lips parted. He lay so still that he might have been dead.

If Julie had killed Nick with her plan to save him, she would never forgive herself.

Julie stroked Nick's hair, comforted to find that his skin was warm. "I should have stuck with you tonight, darling," she apologized for what she hoped would be the first of many times. "I asked him to go out to dinner tonight, but he said he wanted to be alone," she explained to Maggie. Maggie was crying; her vision must have been blurring, and Gabi looked half-crazed with fear. Neither one of them would trust herself if she thought she saw Nick breathing. "I should have been there more. Maybe he wouldn't have been in that terrible place. I should have been around…"

"I tried," whimpered Maggie. "Not enough. But I did try."

"No, we all failed him," Julie corrected. But if she got another chance, she wasn't going to fail her little cousin again.

"He didn't want help," whimpered Maggie, already making excuses for herself. Maggie hadn't really cared about anyone but her long-lost son Dan, and Dan's daughter Melanie, in years. Dan didn't like Nick, and Melanie didn't like Nick, so Maggie didn't care about Nick any longer.

"He didn't know how to ask for it, Maggie, and there's a difference!" Julie was struck with a vicious realization that she wasn't going to mind lying to Maggie. Hope, yes. Maggie, no.

"Sleep well, my angel," Maggie told Nick in a final sort of way.

In turn, Julie leaned down to brush her lips against Nick's face. "God give you peace, and glory."

_And if He doesn't, I certainly will._

* * *

><p>Hope walked home from the hospital in the early hours of the morning. She would take a shower, give her children the bad news about Nick, and then get to work solving the crime.<p>

Rafe had told her that she had no business investigating her own cousin's death. He was right and she knew it, but she didn't care. As long as the crime got solved, a voice in her head suggested, what did it matter if she breached protocol?

Her jaw tightened. The voice in her head sounded like Bo. Bo would never have recused himself from a case involving a family member, and Bo would never have let a little thing like best practices get in the way of what he, himself, thought was best.

Why Bo thought it best to leave her alone with their daughter for nearly two years was beyond her.

But now wasn't the time to worry about Bo. Instead, she had to take care of their children.

She called Shawn-D first. He and Belle had sailed to Australia earlier in the year and had liked it so much that they had put their daughter Claire in school there. Early morning in Salem was late evening in Australia; soon, it would be too late to call.

Besides, Shawn-D was both the oldest and the easiest. Telling Ciara, when she had already suffered more loss than any little girl should, was going to be an ordeal. And Chelsea…

Tears pricked Hope's eyes. Chelsea might just take it worse than Ciara.

Shawn-D answered his phone on the first ring. "Mom!" he said, his voice warm and happy. "Claire just went to bed, but I'll wake her up. I know she won't want to miss talking to you."

Hope swallowed hard. "No. No, Shawn, don't do that."

His tone changed abruptly. "What's wrong? Oh my God, is it Dad?"

"Your father's fine. As far as I know. I haven't heard anything new."

"Then what?"

"It's your cousin Nick. He… well, there's no easy way to say it. He was shot last night and the doctors did their best, but he didn't pull through."

Halfway around the world, Shawn-D exhaled heavily. "He was shot? Who would want to shoot Nick?"

It struck Hope with a fresh wave of sadness that Shawn-D had been away from Salem for a very long time. He still thought of Nick as the awkward, sweet young men who had come to town eight years before. Indeed, no one would have wanted to shoot that Nick. But the Nick who had smirked and threatened and tormented Will for being gay…

"Half of Salem wanted Nick dead. He wasn't the same boy you remember. Prison changed him."

"That's really hard to believe," Shawn-D mused. "Not that prison changed him. I mean, I do believe you. But when I think of Nick, I think of the guy who flew to Canada to give Belle and me the money we needed to get out of town before Philip could find us. Did I ever even tell you? I got arrested and he had to use the money you gave him to bail me out. He promised he would get enough to get us on a boat and he wouldn't let me ask how. It wasn't until a year later that Chelsea told me he got it by pawning the watch his parents bought him when he graduated at the top of his class at that Polytech place. Oh, God, Chelsea. Does she know?"

"She's my next call."

"Want me to do it?"

"That's sweet," said Hope, and it was. But she hadn't done enough to stop Nick's downward spiral. She couldn't change that now, but she could find his killer, and she could break the news to the girl who had once loved him with all of her heart. "Don't worry. I'll do it."

"I'll let you go, then," said Shawn-D. "Thanks for calling."

"I didn't want you to find out from Facebook."

"Call Chelsea right away. She's always online first thing in the morning."

"Right," Hope agreed, and they said their goodbyes.

For the past two years, her step-daughter had been working at a private hospital near Washington DC. Hope got the idea that most of the patients were politicians who did not want word of exactly what they'd done to land in the hospital to get out. Chelsea had never said for sure. She had only said that she'd taken the first job offered, and if it was far away from everyone she knew, so much the better.

Hope thought Chelsea seemed lonely enough without hearing what Hope had to tell her.

It was early in Washington, but not egregiously so. Chelsea would be getting ready for work. Numbly, Hope watched as her phone dialed Chelsea's number.

"Hope?" Chelsea's voice was full of fear. "What's wrong? Is it Dad?"

_Damn it, Brady, _Hope scowled inwardly. Bo had no business vanishing and leaving his children to worry like this. "Your father's fine, Sweetie. But I think you should sit down. I do have bad news."

"Don't try to soften it. That never works. Just tell me," ordered Chelsea.

Hope obeyed. "Nick Fallon died this morning."

"_What_?" Outraged explosions usually came first with Chelsea. Grief came later, often wrapped up in a self-destructive bundle.

"He was murdered. But I am going to find whoever did it, and I am going to make sure they're punished."

"You do that, Hope. You send them to prison for the rest of their lives. And you tell them from me that-" Chelsea's voice broke off so suddenly that Hope wondered if they had lost their connection.

"Chelsea? Are you there?"

"Yeah." She was silent again.

"What are you thinking?"

"Just that I don't really have a right to be upset, you know? I haven't seen Nick for, what, five years? I can't carry on like I'm the grieving widow when all he was was my college sweetheart."

"You have a right to whatever feelings you want to have. You loved Nick very much and he loved you very much. Even if he wasn't with you, of course you wanted to think that he was out there, somewhere, safe and happy."

"I guess." Chelsea's voice cracked. "I wouldn't be the person I am if it hadn't been for Nick. He saw through all my brattiness and lashing out. He saw that I could be smart, and good, and lovable and- he just saw me. I don't think you and I would even have ever gotten to be on speaking terms if it hadn't been for Nick."

"Yes, we would have," Hope promised. "You're Bo's daughter and you are a part of this family. We would have found a way." She shook her head to clear the memories of anger, pain, and Zack. "But Nick did make it a lot easier."

"I miss him so much. I hadn't seen him in years but now I miss him so much. People like him shouldn't die. Young people. Brilliant people. Of everyone I ever met in my life, the two was sure were going to change the world were Nick and-" She stopped just short of saying Zack's name, but Hope felt it. "I have to get ready for work. Thank you for calling."

"Are you sure you should go to work? You could take time off. You could come visit. Ciara would love to see you."

"I need to go to work," Chelsea repeated.

"I'll keep you up to date on the investigation. If that's what you want?"

"Yes. Please," said Chelsea, and she hung up without a proper goodbye.

Hope stared at the phone. "Do not do anything dangerous," she told Chelsea, even though there was no way for Chelsea to hear.

But there was one more call to make.

Unlike Shawn-D and Chelsea, Ciara let her phone ring and ring. Just before it went to voicemail, the little girl casually answered. "Hi, Mommy. Are you finally calling to tell me that someone murdered my favorite cousin?"

"I wanted to tell you, Ciara. I didn't want to wake you up."

"Allie did that," said Ciara matter-of-factly. "She's staying at Grandma's, too. She woke up screaming."

"Poor Allie," Hope sighed.

"Allie said that there was blood everywhere. She said Nick walked into the Horton Square pumped full of bullets."

"That's true," Hope admitted. She didn't care for Ciara's word choice, but it wouldn't do any good to lie to her daughter.

"Of course it's true. Allie doesn't lie. She's useless that way."

"Don't call your cousin useless," said Hope automatically.

"Whatever," said Ciara.

"I'll come see you before you go to school, all right?"

"Whatever," Ciara repeated.

It was going to be a long day.

**TBC**

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><p><strong>Auxiliary Disclaimer:<strong> _Some dialog in this chapter was taken directly from the May 12, 2014 episode of Days of Our Lives. _


	2. The Smith Center

**Part 2: The Smith Center**

The flight from Salem to Washington was a quick one, made even quicker by a private plane and a pilot who was family.

Julie never took her eyes off of the gentle rise and fall of Nick's chest. His breathing was shallow but steady, not hitching even when the small plane was buffeted by turbulence as its course swung from southeasterly to due east.

"Sorry," Jeremy called over his shoulder. "Couldn't avoid that, but I think we'll be okay from now until we land."

"Thank you, darling," she told him automatically.

"No problem," Jeremy said casually. Julie bit her lip to keep from scolding that the correct response was always "you're welcome" and never "no problem." She had just asked Jeremy to break half a dozen laws, and he had done it immediately and cheerfully. Just for today, she wouldn't quibble about his manners.

"Really, Jeremy," she repeated, her eyes still on Nick but the rest of her attention on the young pilot, "thank you. I know I asked you for a very big favor tonight. I hope it never has repercussions for you."

"Me too." Jeremy almost laughed. "But it's Nick. I'm willing to take the risk. He would have done it for me. He pretty much did. I should've gone to jail when Jett busted me for smuggling. Nick gave me a chance to run, and he didn't have to. I was a little shit to him, I really was, but he told me to get it together instead of telling me to go to hell."

"Why did you get mixed up in that in the first place?" Julie asked. "Smuggling. You didn't need the money."

"Young. Stupid. Looking for a rush." Jeremy shook his head in disgust. "I thought I was this badass. I never totally fit in Israel or in Salem, you know? Not quite Israeli. Not quite American. Not quite Jewish. Not quite Christian. None of that mattered when I was breaking the law because when I was being a jackass, I knew who I was. That's probably not something you would understand."

Julie sighed. She should have shared more with her younger family members—all of them. She hadn't made the mistake for the first time with Nick, but she could make it for the last time with him. "I'd understand better than you think, Jeremy," she said quietly.

For a long time, Jeremy didn't answer. Julie didn't push; it wasn't a good idea to distract the man flying the plane. Finally, Jeremy asked softly, rhetorically, whether prison had really been so terrible for Nick.

"It was," Julie confirmed. "Worse than we knew."

"I wonder what it would have been like for me if I'd let Jett put me in prison instead of running."

"Not that I condone what you did, but I'm glad that we won't have to find out."

"Unless we get caught tonight."

"Absolutely not," said Julie emphatically. "We'll tell them I threatened your cousin's life. It wasn't your choice to make." The story came together neatly in her mind. "When I first called you from Salem, all I told you was that I needed you to transport your cousin discreetly."

"That _is_ all you told me."

"The best kind of lie starts with the truth, doesn't it?"

She could feel him shift around in his seat to stare at her. For the briefest instant, she flicked her eyes away from Nick's chest to meet Jeremy's gaze. "Watch where we're going," she reprimanded.

"It's almost all computerized. You could fly this plane," said Jeremy, but he turned back to the rows of controls and dark windows.

"I'd love to," said Julie honestly. "Maybe another time. As I was saying, you had no idea that I intended to fake Nick's death until I got him on the plane. I told you that if you didn't take off, I would let Nick die for real to cover my own tracks. I would rather see him dead by my hand than by the hands of those self-righteous vipers in Salem. I couldn't take the idea of him trapped in a hospital bed just waiting for Victor or EJ or one of their minions to finish him off. You believed that the only way to keep Nick alive was to follow my orders. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you had no choice!"

"Or we can just keep our mouths shut and hope no one ever finds out," said Jeremy.

"That _would_ be preferable," Julie agreed.

* * *

><p>That Julie even knew of the Smith Center's existence was something of a coup. Senator Levin had taken his third wife on a romantic cruise a decade or two ago; Doug and Julie had been seated at their table for the first night. Both the senator and his wife had taken a shine to Doug, as people inevitably did. (Julie certainly couldn't blame them.) Before long the two couples had been planning to meet for quick weekend getaways and exchanging extravagant Christmas presents.<p>

When Senator Levin had crashed his car, in which he carried not one but three half-naked young interns and copious amounts of alcohol, it had been Julie that his wife had called. And it had been the Smith Center that had treated Senator Levin's injuries with the utmost discretion. Naturally, Julie had followed the media's coverage of the incident with rapt attention—but there had been very little coverage, and very few juicy details.

There had been no mention of the Smith Center.

The Smith Center didn't even appear when Julie Googled it. (However, it was entirely possible that Julie was Googling wrong. Perhaps she would ask Nick or Jeremy to try it sometime.)

The Smith Center's policy was that the only people suited to receive its services were the people who already knew how to find it.

"Mrs. Williams," the receptionist greeted her coolly while Nick was taken back to a private room. There was a file on Julie; she could see her own name clearly marked on a worn red folder. She had no doubt that the file had been started the moment she had first visited Senator Levin during his long recovery. "What's your relationship to the patient?"

"Cousin," she answered, coughing a little on the word as the dry sterility of the room tickled her throat.

The receptionist raised her eyebrows. "Cousin?" she asked dubiously, as if _cousin_ were a vague term that covered all manner of sins, which of course it was.

"Grandson," Julie corrected hastily. She didn't feel a shred of guilt about the lie. _Grandson_ described much better what Nick meant to her. _Cousin_ implied distance that didn't exist—or at least, a distance that wouldn't have existed during Alice Horton's lifetime.

"Grandson. All right," the receptionist agreed, finding the explanation much more palatable. Not even half an hour later Julie was permitted to park herself at Nick's bedside next to the IVs and monitors. It was as good a place as any to await the arrival of Jessica, Joshua, and Marie.

Julie had known that she could expect an argument from Jessica and Marie about her plan to lie about Nick's death.

She was still startled by the force of Marie's glare when the orderly escorted her to the room with the news that "Nick's grandmother is already with him."

Marie didn't glare.

Marie never glared.

When they'd been children, Julie had done enough glaring for both of them. Marie had been Tom and Alice's youngest child and Julie their eldest grandchild. They were only five years apart in age, contemporaries despite their generational placement on the family tree.

"What have you done, Julie?" Marie demanded, her arms crossed and her usually gentle eyes flashing. Josh and Jessica slipped around them and took their places by Nick's bedside, carefully stroking his hair and reading the notes on his patient chart. (Scientists, all of them, in this branch of the family.)

"I believe I've saved Nick's life," Julie told her quietly.

"By bringing him halfway across the country hours after someone shot him?"

Marie had always been the sweet, fragile darling of the family. Even in her wildest years, Julie had never been inclined to attack Marie. But at the moment, Julie did not care for Marie's tone. Not even a little bit. "Yes, Marie," she said tightly around her fear and exhaustion. "I brought him halfway across the country so no one could take another shot at him."

"Do they often have shootouts in University Hospital?"

"The Board is full of names like _Kiriakis_ and _DiMera_. I didn't think it was out of the question."

"You didn't think at all, and you took an incredible gamble with my grandson's life."

Julie just barely stopped herself from rolling her eyes. "Sorry about the grandson thing. It made checking him in easier."

"All these years, and you'd still rather do something easy than something honest. It's true that people just get to be more themselves as they get older, isn't it?"

Part of Julie wanted to explain exactly how far from easy it had been to get Nick out of Salem, but she couldn't indict Jeremy or the little CNA she'd bribed to pretend to be a surgeon. Part of Julie wanted to tell Marie how little grief there had been in their family's eyes when Nick had been pronounced dead. Part of Julie wanted to slap Marie and tell her that while Marie might have gotten old, Julie would _never_ do such a thing. In the end, she didn't say any of that.

Instead she shrugged, and allowed herself an internal vindictive celebration when Marie's eyes flashed with annoyance. "If you'd been there, you could have made the decision. You weren't, so I did."

"Don't turn this back on me," Marie snapped.

"Why not? It's fair," said Jessica quietly from her perch beside Nick. "Julie's right. I'm his mother, I should have known that something was going on."

"He always seemed fine in his texts and his emails," Josh mused, quietly stroking Jessica's arm. As far as Julie could tell, Joshua had revered Jessica from the moment they had met and had never stopped. "If he didn't ask for help—"

It was the same rationalization Maggie had used. "He didn't know how," said Julie.

"I don't think anyone is arguing that things should have gotten this far," Josh told her. "He's here now. We need to discuss what to do going forward, not what we should have done five hours or five months or five years ago."

"That's very reasonable, Joshua," said Julie with her brightest smile. Marie scowled. "Does anyone really want to move him back to Salem?"

"This equipment is state of the art," said Josh.

"I'm not going to compound whatever damage you did by moving him again, just to make a point," grumbled Marie.

Jessica shook her head. "All that's true. But doesn't it bother either of you how creepy this place is? All the security. All the secrecy."

"It's only for the patients' safety," Julie told her as gently as she could. "Half of Salem wanted Nick dead. He was threatening and blackmailing people left and right. I should have seen it earlier, but it wasn't until Abigail became so furious with him…" Julie trailed off.

"Nick and Abby were always so close," murmured Jessica. "I'm sure she didn't want him dead."

"I don't believe that she did, either," Julie agreed.

"She must feel horrible," said Josh. "We can't let the rest of the family think he's dead."

"Agreed," said Marie.

Jessica nodded. "Even if he was in danger in Salem, he's here now. No one can hurt him."

"Do you think EJ DiMera would rest until he found Nick if he believed that Nick was alive? If he believed that Nick was a threat?" Julie challenged.

Jessica hesitated.

"Am I going to have to be the one who points out the little matter that we're breaking about fifty laws?" asked Josh.

"How many laws are you willing to break for your son's life?" asked Julie.

Josh hesitated.

"He knew who shot him," Julie said meanly. "He pointed when he collapsed in my arms, but he couldn't speak. There were a dozen people who knew him right there, and the only one who appeared to care that he was bleeding to death was a nine-year-old girl."

"Ciara saw?" asked Marie, finally looking properly horrified.

"Allie. Lucas' daughter," Julie corrected.

"And you're all right with her having nightmares for the rest of her life because of this?"

"I don't like it at all," Julie admitted. Allie had had enough bad breaks for a lifetime when she'd been stuck with Sami Brady as a mother and EJ DiMera as a stepfather. "I just think it's the best choice. Allie's nightmares, or Nick's life? Abigail's guilt, or Nick's life? The law, or Nick's life? Don't you at least want to wait until he wakes up and can tell us what happened?"

"All right," Marie conceded begrudgingly, at last.

Outside, the sun was high enough in the sky to send blinding flashes of light into the room. A headache exploded behind Julie's eyes as they objected to the brightness.

She didn't care. Nick had lasted the night, and the morning, and that was all that mattered.

* * *

><p>Chelsea scowled at the bright Virginia summer sun and willed it go away.<p>

The sun didn't listen. The sun was happy to keep on shining after Nick was gone.

It was part of Chelsea's job to be happy; such was the nature of any job involving customers, especially when those customers were rich and powerful. She wasn't bad at faking it, really; she had always been an exemplary liar. Even on a day like this, she was able to smile and nod at the young actor who needed occupational therapy to recover the use of his hand after punching a wall even though the young actor was whining about how it had somehow been his girlfriend's fault.

She smiled and nodded, but she thought _Nick wouldn't say something like that_.

The truth was that the actor had only said it because he was an idiot and a spoiled brat. Most men wouldn't have said anything so stupid. Nick, though, was the one she thought of because it was a day where everything was destined to make her think of Nick.

She saw a glass of water on a bedside table and thought of Nick getting an olive into a glass without touching it and asking whether the bartender who wanted to throw Chelsea in jail had ever heard of inertia.

She heard a plane flying overhead and she remembered the time she and Nick had flown to Canada to help Shawn, Belle, and Claire escape to Australia. She'd demanded that Nick take a magazine quiz, and he'd done it because he'd always been willing to do silly things to spend time with her.

She read a patient chart that mentioned a head injury and remembered Nick bleeding from his forehead after bearing the brunt of an explosion meant for Sami.

She saw row upon row of vaccines, and remembered Nick finding an antidote that had saved her Aunt Kayla's life.

Every time she saw a man's shadow or heard a man's footsteps, she wondered if it was Nick. That was silly; she knew Nick's shadow and she knew Nick's footsteps.

And she knew that Nick was dead.

"I wish you would have called me if you were in trouble," she whispered aloud when she sat under a tree and pretended to eat her lunch.

That was stupid. Nick wouldn't have called her; they hadn't spoken in years.

Still, he could have called someone. People liked Nick. People loved Nick. People would have wanted to help Nick.

She would have.

Even though they hadn't spoken for years.

"Idiot," she told the universe quietly. "For someone so fucking brilliant, you were an idiot."

_**TBC.**_

**Note**: _Two reviews and four follows! That's… more than I expected considering I'm sitting here writing a fic about a bunch of characters who are not on the show. Thank you!_


	3. Awesome Lady

**_Part 3: Awesome Lady_**

The park had been full of the scent of lilacs when Gabi shot Nick.

When Nick blinked awake in an unfamiliar bed and an unfamiliar room, he could still smell the lilacs. They were more overwhelming than the pain.

He never wanted to smell lilacs again.

"_Nicky_," his father's voice said urgently. Two hands squeezed one of Nick's.

Nick wanted to laugh. His parents hadn't called him "Nicky" since… well, they'd never really stopped calling him that. But he'd barely spoken them for years, both by accident and by design. It was odd to hear a little boy's name attached to a grown man who had destroyed his own life so completely.

"Make the lilacs go away," he whined at Josh.

Then he lost consciousness again.

* * *

><p>For a week and a half after Nick's murder, when she might have been expected to seek solace in her family, Hope immersed herself in her work. In this situation, though, work and family were one and the same. She questioned Abigail and Will and Lucas- Lucas over and over, because he seemed particularly set on presenting her with obvious lies. She received a frustrating voicemail from Julie announcing that she had left town with Nick's body so he could be buried near his parents' home, but managed to question Julie over the phone just the same.<p>

Once again, Rafe tried to tell Hope that she had no business interrogating her own lying family members. Once again, she ignored him.

In some ways, questioning her family was easier. She knew when Lucas was lying. She was quite familiar with him, after all.

In some ways, questioning strangers was easier. She didn't expect to have to face Jordan Ridgeway or Ben Rogers across the table at Thanksgiving dinner. (After the way Lucas had behaved, he could expect a pitcher of gravy to fall accidentally into his lap. Or perhaps over his head.)

There was no way that questioning Aiden Jennings was easier, even though he had a perfectly reasonable explanation for Nick's having one of his business cards. Nick, it seemed, had wanted to hire Aiden to represent Gabi should she sue Will and Sonny for sole custody of her daughter Arianna Grace. Abigail had recommended Aiden to Nick. Both Abigail and Gabi confirmed Aiden's story. Still, it felt almost like a violation to hear Aiden talk about how Nick had cowed Gabi during the meeting.

Nick had been Hope's cousin, Jessica's son, Marie's grandson. Aiden, who had spent most of their acquaintance passing judgment on everything Hope did and everyone Hope loved, shouldn't have been allowed to know things that Hope didn't know.

Then thread that finally pulled the knot of the mystery loose presented itself in the form of Will. Apparently a desire to obstruct justice was a hereditary traint. Like Lucas, Will seemed inclined to lie unconvincingly with the obvious intent of muddying the waters- or even taking the fall for something he had not done.

That left Hope with a very, very short list of suspects. The obvious one was Will's husband Sonny, but Sonny was singularly unlikely to allow such a thing. Sonny clearly had no idea that there was anything to cover up. Only one person could have killed Nick, but left behind evidence that left Will thinking it had been Sonny.

Hope sighed heavily as the answer clicked into place.

Gabriela Hernandez.

Not her family after all, but Rafe's.

She left Will ranting and raving at the police station, knowing that Sami, Lucas, and Sonny could be trusted to keep Will from going too far down the road of perjury in the next hour. An hour was all she needed.

She knocked on the door of the apartment Will, Sonny, and Gabi all shared with the baby. Anyone could tell that it was a happy, if untraditional, home. Small wonder that all three of the adults had contemplated murder to keep Nick from disrupting it.

Gabi answered the door with her year-old daughter in her arms.

"I'm here on police business," Hope told her, not looking too long at the child who was going to grow up without a parent, just as Ciara was doing now that Bo had vanished.

They talked about babies, at first, to break the ice. Gabi said the things all young mothers say. That at first she and Will had believed that Arianna would stay tiny forever, and then all of a sudden she fit into clothes that had once seemed far too big to ever be of use. That Arianna had been a different baby every few months for the first year of her life.

"They change, but they stay the same, too," Hope assured Gabi, hoping the girl would remember that when she dreamed of reuniting with her daughter after their inevitable separation. "I see that with Ciara."

Gabi nodded, wise in the way of all young mothers. In that moment, Hope knew that Gabi was ready.

"Will confessed to Nick's murder," Hope told her.

If she hadn't already been sure that Gabi- who had had means, motive, and opportunity- was the killer, she would have known it by the horrified, shattered look on Gabi's face.

"No," said Gabi. She didn't cry; she didn't scream. "No, he can't do that."

"Why can't he?" Hope asked gently.

Gabi looked into Hope's eyes, and Hope saw Gabi realize that Hope knew. "He can't do it because it wasn't him. It was me. I knew where Sonny's gun- Victor's gun- was. I just wanted Nick to stop. It was- it was almost too easy."

She went quietly to the police station with Hope and repeated her confession formally.

Hope had rarely seen a killer so calmly repentant and willing to face prison, yet so nobly convinced that there had been no other choice.

In truth, in that moment, Gabi reminded her of Nick on the day he went to prison for the murder of Trent Robbins.

The world of crime was full of vicious cycles, but none quite like this one.

* * *

><p>Hope escaped to the park once she was assured that the rest of Gabi's confession could be handled without her presence. She had lived and breathed Nick's murder for almost two weeks, and now that it was over things weren't any easier.<p>

She sat on the bench and looked at the familiar picture of Bo that had a place of honor on her phone. "How am I supposed to get through this without you to talk to?" she asked aloud. "I wish I could explain this to Ciara. What do I say to your mom? Where the hell are you, Brady? What could be more important than your family?"

She leaned her head back and stared at the sky. It was a beautiful early summer day- something Nick would never experience again. Something Gabi would never enjoy freely until she was a much older woman. Something little Arianna Grace would never share with her mother.

Hope closed her eyes, then opened them as she sensed that she was not alone.

Aiden Jennings was standing less than three feet away, watching her closely.

It was a testament to how far she and Aiden had come in the six months they'd known each other that she was relieved to see him and not someone who had any real involvement with the Nick Fallon murder case. She didn't want to argue with her family or assuage one of Nick's victims.

Still, even though Aiden was no longer as joyless and judgmental as he'd been when they'd first come face to face at Saint Luke's elementary school, she didn't exactly relish the idea of a conversation. The only person she really, truly wanted to see was Bo.

Hope stood up and crossed her arms defensively. "I wasn't expecting to see you here." _It's a public park, Hope. Anyone can come here. That's kind of the point, _she reminded herself.

"I was in court all morning. I needed a break." He looked her over and she could see him making note of her worry and tiredness- something that she would not have thought him capable of doing short months before. "How are you doing?"

She still wasn't in the mood to talk to him. "Great," she told him, with her best smile.

"Well, there it is," he said. His voice dripped with his usual assurance that he was definitely right.

"What?" she asked, her morbid curiosity outweighing her annoyance at being interrupted.

"That smile you force when you're upset. You used it a lot on me when we first met. You deployed it at the bake sale when that prissy little girl said you didn't give her back the right change."

"I didn't realize I did that," she said. If Aiden had said it with a sneer, or an accusation, she would have told him what a horrible human being he was and enjoyed it. It was have been a fine way to get rid of her pent-up anger. But instead, he was kind, almost gentle. It left her feeling naked right there in the middle of the park.

"You want to talk about it?" he asked. He sat down on the bench and invited her to sit beside him. In confused exhaustion, she did. She felt his arm on the bench behind her, protective instead of challenging, but she leaned away from it. She had an odd feeling that if any human being touched her, she might go to pieces. And Hope did not go to pieces. Hope was a cop and a mother and tougher than that.

"It's pretty complicated," she managed around the lump rising in her throat.

"Yeah," he whispered. "Yeah. Hey." Then his arm was around her and she was crying against his chest.

It only lasted a few seconds before she pulled herself together. "Sorry," she choked out as she fumbled in her bag for a tissue. "I don't usually do that."

"Having a miserable day, huh? Hate when that happens," he said with what passed for humor with Aiden.

She forced a chuckle as she dried her eyes. "Me too."

"Like I said, I was at the courthouse. I heard that Gabi Hernandez confessed to killing Nick Fallon. I called her and left a message, offered to represent her." He paused, shifting gears from shop talk back to the personal. "What's this like for you?"

No one else had asked that. Not Julie, who busy throwing fits about bringing Nick's killer to justice as if Nick had somehow been innocent. Not Rafe, with his dour glares that Nick had had it coming and asides that Hope should not be working the case. Not Bo, because he wasn't here. "I wanted to believe so badly that he had changed, that Nick had changed. That he was okay."

"You know, from what I saw of Nick, he had a mind of his own. For whatever reason, Gabi wasn't asking for help. There's really nothing that you could have done."

Hope bristled just slightly. "I'm sorry, but you're basing that on one meeting. One meeting. You didn't really know anything about the situation. Or me, for that matter."

"Maybe you're right about Gabi and Nick. But I know you better than you think."

"No. No. Nope. You don't know me as well as you think you do, Aiden." She stood up again, safely away from the touch that made her want to cry and scream and ask for safe harbor.

He stretched out on the bench, enjoying a battle with her as he usually did. "Well, I disagree. See, I have the unique point of view of someone who misjudged you on sight." Hope hadn't expected that. She turned to face Aiden and he, too, stood up from the bench. "But when I finally saw who you are, I said 'you know, I should be a little bit more observant.' And I have been."

"And what do you see?"

"I see a good, decent person. Someone who doesn't give herself enough credit for all the good that you do. So I'm sorry if I disappoint you, but I'm going to continue to think of you as an awesome lady."

It was the nicest thing anyone had said to Hope for a year.

"But don't let it go to your head," Aiden added.

"You don't have to worry about that."

"Come on. You know that I'm right. Just admit it."

Hope smiled, admitting nothing but ready to face the rest of her day. "Are you heading back to the courthouse?" she asked Aiden.

"Yeah. Walk with me?"

She nodded, sorting through her thoughts and deciding which to share with him. "The thing about Nick," she said, carefully not meeting his eyes so they would not have a repeat performance of tears and hugging, "is that yes, he was forceful and out of control. I'm not going to say you didn't know what you were looking at when he pushed Gabi to ask for primary custody of Arianna Grace. I told him myself, one of the last times I saw him, that he might have some people fooled but that I didn't trust him."

"You were right."

"I wasn't right. I wasn't right when I let it go at that instead of pushing harder and making sure he had what he needed to be the kind of person he was supposed to be. He was my family. I should have taken better care of him."

"He was an adult. Your distant cousin, right?"

"First cousin once removed, technically." She launched easily into the explanation; she had clarified her family's complicated interconnections so many times over the years that doing it had become rote and comforting. "His mother, Jessica, she's my first cousin. We were good friends when we were teenagers. That is, until the day I found out that she tried to elope with Jake Kositchek, and I was so in love with him." Hope almost laughed at the memory of being infatuated with a man who was not Bo. It was easy to forget that that had ever happened.

"You never forgave her?" asked Aiden with interest.

Hope smiled again. "Of course I did. There were extenuating circumstances." Extenuating circumstances like Jake turning out to be a murderous psychopath. Extenuating circumstances like Jessica's mental illness.

The smile fell from her face. Had Nick inherited Jessica's mental instability the way Jessica had inherited it from Aunt Marie? Was that what had caused such a drastic change in his personality, combined with the traumas he had lived through in prison?

She swallowed the question down. It would be no good to wonder now. Instead, she plastered what she hoped was a playful expression on her face.

"Anyway, Nick was Jessica's son. My Aunt Marie's grandson. Do I need to email you the Horton family tree?"

"If I'm going to live in Salem, it might be helpful," said Aiden. He wasn't wrong. "But it's not as if he was your child or-"

"That's the thing." She pulled out her phone again and swiped through the pictures. "This is Chelsea," she told Aiden. "She's Ciara's older sister. My stepdaughter."

Aiden admired the picture appropriately. "She's very pretty. She could pass for your daughter."

"There was a time when neither one of us would have taken that as a compliment. Bo didn't know about Chelsea until she was a teenager."

"The mother couldn't be bothered to tell him?" asked Aiden with unexpected viciousness.

Hope filed his reaction away for further evaluation later. "No, actually, Billie was tricked as well. She believed that Chelsea died at birth. Chelsea was none too pleased to be handed a new set of parents and a wicked stepmother at the age of sixteen. The only person in the family she really liked was Zack." She swiped through the pictures again Zack, forever six years old, beamed out at them. "Bo's and my son. Ciara's older brother."

"I didn't realize you had other children."

Hope shook her head, not wanting to get further ahead in the story. "Zack was my second and Bo's third. Our son Shawn-Douglas is in Australia now. Shawn-D isn't very much older than Chelsea, and suffice it to say they were oil and water at the beginning. But Zack… everyone loved Zack.

"Chelsea was busy redefining what it means to be a troubled teenager. She lost her driver's license and she batted her eyes at Bo until he wrote her a temporary one. She was his long lost daughter after all, and it was hard for him to say no. She was on her phone and she was distracted. Meanwhile Zack was at a sleepover with one of his friends. The family had a cat that was allowed out at night, and Zack was convinced that he had to go find it. He went into the road, and-"

"Oh no," Aiden breathed.

"She didn't mean it, of course. At that point in her life Zack was about the only person she truly loved. I know now that she thinks of him every day and would die in his place just as much as I would. But at the time, I didn't know how to forgive Bo, and I didn't know how to forgive Chelsea. Of course one of the things that helped was Ciara coming along. And the other thing that happened was my cousin Nick showing up and taking a shine to Chelsea."

"So your cousin and your stepdaughter."

Hope shrugged. "Forget about degrees of separation. I was just afraid that she would eat him alive. The Nick we knew then was nothing like the Nick you met. He wouldn't have dreamed of manipulating or lying or blackmailing. He went out of his way for everyone he met. It's entirely possible that he saved Shawn-D's life. And when he met Chelsea, he took everything she dished out and gave her back patience and kindness. You mentioned what it's like to look at someone and know you judged them unfairly? That's what happened when I saw Chelsea through Nick's eyes. I saw that this was a scared teenage girl who needed me. She needed love and her family. I'd like to think I would have figured it out without Nick, but that isn't what happened. Nick is what happened. And my family owed it to him to pay him back in kind, and I fell down on the job. But all I could do was find his killer."

"And it turned out to be the woman he loved."

"And my family is pretty evenly split between devastation and celebrating because Nick is rotting in hell."

"I'm sure he's not in hell," said Aiden quietly.

"Thanks," said Hope. She was close enough to hell herself to know that she would never have wished it on Nick.

_**TBC**_

* * *

><p><strong>Auxiliary Disclaimer: <strong>_Some dialog in this chapter was taken directly from the June 4, 2014 episode of Days of Our Lives. The "awesome lady" moment was too good not to borrow._


	4. The Sentence

**Part 4: The Sentence**

Every time Nick awoke, he was a little bit stronger and a little bit more coherent. For all that, no matter how Marie asked and Jessica cajoled and Josh ordered and Julie pleaded, Nick gave them no answer about who had shot him or why.

At first they agreed that Nick was still confused and in shock. When the pain and disorientation faded, they hoped, they would get a proper explanation.

The disorientation faded. Nick was able to remember twenty year old family jokes and follow the doctors' directions to the letter.

He had nothing to say about who had shot him.

"Please, Nick," coaxed Julie, who was used to finding a way to get anything she wanted and had no qualms about begging if she thought it would help. "I know we've failed you, but it won't happen again. Please do us the honor of letting us keep you safe."

"You didn't fail me. And I'm safe," said Nick flatly. "Who could get in here? Who would want to?"

"Who would want to is such an interesting question," Julie pretended to muse. "For example, who would want to shoot you in the park and leave you there, and then come to the Horton Town Square and watch you drag yourself—"

"Julie!" snapped Marie, who was not a fan of the imagery.

"I'm sorry, Julie," Nick said. "I don't remember that night very well. A lot of people wanted to shoot me and I deserved it. It could have been anyone. The rest of Salem will probably give her a medal."

"_Her_?" Julie seized.

"Or him. I just didn't want to continue to assert the privileged status bestowed on men by the patriarchy by using the male pronoun as a default."

"All right, Nick Fallon. There will be no changing the subject. You will tell me right this second—"

"He doesn't remember," said Marie. "Let him be. It's perfectly normal for a patient who has experienced a trauma this severe not to remember what happened."

"Be that as it may, _Nick_ remembers and Nick is going to—" Nick closed his eyes. "I'm not done with you, Nick. Open your eyes!"

"You are very much done with him," Marie corrected, and she escorted Julie from the room. Once out of Nick's earshot, Marie launched into a lecture about badgering Nick when what Nick needed was rest. "If Nick doesn't ever remember, I don't care," said Marie firmly. "I just care that he's here with us now."

Julie rolled her eyes. "We all agree that the most important thing is that he's here now. I seem to be the only one who thinks that the second most important thing is making sure he's still here tomorrow instead of in the clutches of some killer who will try again given the slightest opportunity."

"You're correct. The rest of us think that the second most important thing is making sure he feels comfortable and secure so that he will have every chance to recover. He's very fragile physically and mentally, and your crusade for justice to assuage your own misplaced feelings of guilt is not helping."

Julie huffed, but she didn't challenge Marie, because she wasn't going to get anything out of Nick in the mood he was in anyway.

Marie and Julie likely would have had that argument a dozen times over had not Julie gotten a call from Hope the next day.

"Have you done it?" Julie demanded in lieu of a proper greeting. "Did you find Nick's killer?"

Hope didn't seem to take offense. "We have a confession," she said. Julie could hear the exhaustion in her voice. "You might want to sit down. This is a hard story to hear."

"Of course it is, it ends with Nick being shot to death," Julie grumbled, but she took Hope's advice and sank into a chair.

"It was Gabi Hernandez."

Julie sat bolt upright. She should have realized it. Nick had told them that the shooter was a woman, no matter how much he had denied it later, and the shooter was obviously someone Nick wanted to protect.

She should have realized at the time that it had been Gabi, but instead Gabi had been practically the only person in all of Salem that she hadn't accused. The girl had looked so bereft, and so harmless, and Julie had underestimated her terribly. It was not a mistake she would repeat. From now on there would be only vengeance and no sympathy.

"I'll be there tomorrow," she promised Hope. "I'll speak to the little guttersnipe myself."

"She is in police custody and she has a right to choose not to speak to you." Julie assumed that Hope was only saying things like that because she had to. Julie knew that Hope couldn't possibly believe that Julie wouldn't be on her way as soon as she heard the news.

"And Nick had a right not to be shot by the woman he loved," Julie concluded. "See you tomorrow, Darling. Love you."

* * *

><p>"Love you, too, Julie," Hope said as she hung up the phone. She crossed breaking the news to her sister-slash-stepmother off her mental list of things she really did not want to do. It had gone as well as could reasonably expected.<p>

The best case scenario, she had to admit, would have involved Julie and Doug getting on a cruise ship and not coming back to Salem until Gabi was behind bars and everyone had come to terms with Nick's death as much as possible. That could not happen for two reasons. Firstly, Doug and a group of old friends who were doing two weeks' worth of shows in Vegas and Julie had forbidden Doug to cancel; one of the old men was dying of cancer and this might be Doug's last chance to see him. Secondly, Julie never made anything that easy.

Still, Julie had kept her ravings to a minimum and that was something at least. It was actually less frightening than Ciara's cool "I never liked her anyway" or Chelsea's disgusted "Nick always did have terrible taste in women."

Hope glanced around the room. Everyone was working peacefully; there were no fires to put out.

A few moments later, Marlena emerged from the room where she had met with Gabi for an informal, confidential counseling session. If Hope hadn't known Marlena for so many years, she might well have missed the tightness of Marlena's lips or the tension in her shoulders. Marlena was angry, and she wasn't angry at Gabi.

Gabi was obviously guilty of murder; all of the evidence confirmed her version of events. However, there was undoubtedly more to the story. Just as Will had wanted to take the fall to protect Sonny, Gabi was hiding something to protect someone.

Again, Hope sighed inwardly. If Gabi's attorney had been anyone but EJ DiMera, she could have appealed to him as a professional. They could have worked together to uncover additional issues and take any mitigating circumstances into account where Gabi was concerned.

If only Gabi had chosen one of the usual defense attorneys, like Luis Jones or Andrea Grant or even…

He was there, she noticed, out near the passageway to the courthouse with the other defense attorneys. No doubt he was arranging bail for one client or another.

She wondered how she had missed seeing Aiden there for so long before Chase and Ciara had had their difficulties at school. The idea that he could have been so close, and she wouldn't have been aware of him, struck her as oddly painful. She wasn't sure why she cared. They hadn't had the most positive of relationships even though the day before he'd unexpectedly called her an awesome lady. (Who would have expected straight-laced and proper Aiden Jennings to use words like "awesome," let alone apply them to Hope?)

Aiden sensed her gaze and met it, and then detached himself from his knot of colleagues to stride into the police station to meet her. Something fluttered inside of Hope—as if convincing Aiden to do anything, even walk across the room, was a triumph to be celebrated.

"Am I in trouble again, detective?" he queried, half-concerned, half-playful.

She fell into bantering mode easily. "Not this time, Mr. Jennings. But don't get too confident."

"I wouldn't dream of it." He flashed his dimples. She'd never really noticed them before.

_I didn't notice because I'm a married woman and what the man looks like isn't important,_ she scolded herself. _All that's important is getting the St. Luke's Gala organized and making sure Ciara and Chase don't go back to shoving each other around the playground._

"And you're still staring at me," Aiden said. "You want to take a mug shot? It'll last longer."

"Maybe later." Smiling felt good, but tiring. "I was wondering whether Gabi ever gave you any indication of why she wanted to be represented by EJ and not you."

"If she had, I couldn't tell you," Aiden reminded her. "But as it happens, no, she never returned my call. I think she was already in the process of agreeing to the plea deal before she ever checked her messages."

"Am I correct in assuming that the terms of the plea have already made it into the rumor mill?"

Aiden nodded.

"Do you think that's a reasonable deal? If she'd been your client, would you have encouraged her to take it?"

"If she were my client, I would know a lot more about the facts and her

preferences than I do." Hope opened her mouth to try to persuade him to guess anyway. He saved her the trouble. "Yes, I believe that I'd be able to get her a lesser sentence if we went to trial, but I understand why a kid in her position doesn't want to take that risk. The plea is reasonable for the crime. It's not something I'd feel bad about my client taking. It's pretty standard. Good, even. But you know that as well as I do."

That was true, Hope agreed. Perhaps Julie's recent rants against the DiMeras in general and EJ in particular were getting to her. Perhaps the knowledge that Bo had left the police force in part to free himself of the red tape that protected the Stefano DiMera was simmering in her and making her look for a mystery where there was none.

Perhaps she just didn't want to see Julie the next day.

* * *

><p>Julie took Hope's hands in hers as soon as she arrived at the police station in Salem. The rush of guilt returned- Julie didn't like to lie to Hope- but she pushed it away.<p>

"When did you get in?" asked Hope.

"A couple of hours ago."

Hope dutifully asked the correct question. "How are Jessica and Marie doing?"

Somehow it was more annoying to Julie that Hope would say the right thing instead of the wrong thing. The whole situation would be more palatable if Hope deserved to be a fed a lie. Annoyance was something Julie could work with. Annoyance was something a woman whose young cousin was newly murdered would feel all the time. "They're still in shock, Hope, wouldn't you be? Nick was shot to death by the woman he loved, who loved him. He was hoping the two of them would marry again-"

"No. No, no, no. That was Nick's fantasy. Gabi didn't want any part of that. Nick had a lot of us fooled about a lot of things."

"Let's not blame Nick too much, shall we?" suggested Julie. "He is dead, after all. And as I told you on the phone, I want to see that girl."

"And as I told you on the phone, that's not a good idea."

"I'm not asking your opinion. I am telling Detective Brady that I want to talk to Gabi Hernandez."

Hope went to ask Gabi's permission, as if Gabi should have had any say in the matter. A moment later Hope returned and led Julie back to one of the interrogation rooms.

Julie kept her ears peeled as she drew nearer the girl who had tried to murder Nick. Gabi's young, high voice drifted into the hall. "_I can't keep hiding from the people I hurt. The people who loved Nick."_

"_One of the few," _sneered EJ DiMera, a man who would have gone without love if there had been any justice in the world. Though perhaps, Julie mused, Sami Brady's love was worse than no love at all. Julie couldn't believe that she had once bent over backwards to get Sami and Lucas married off. Lucas was better off rid of Sami.

"No," Julie told Hope. "I can't do this if he's in the room."

"This is something I need to do," said Gabi with a wise but childlike assurance that Julie would have appreciated on any other young woman. "I'll be okay."

"You'll be in the room the entire time?" EJ asked Hope over Julie's head.

"Yes, of course," Hope confirmed, as if stating that Julie was not to be trusted didn't even warrant the energy to draw breath.

EJ left the room, oozing self-righteousness to which he was not entitled.

"Julie," began Gabi before Julie even had a chance to look at the girl properly, "I know you must feel-"

"You don't know anything." Julie wasn't sure she'd ever spoken truer words in her life. "You killed Nick. Don't you dare tell me what I feel."

"I know you hate me. I don't blame you."

"I just got back from taking Nick's body to his parents and his grandmother. Do you have any idea how that felt?" Gabi was silent, and Julie warmed to her task. "No? Nothing to say? Do you have any concept of what you have done to their lives?"

"I think that because I'm a mother, I have an idea of how much it must hurt," whispered Gabi. Julie began to forgive herself for having believed in the girl's fragility. She was a hell of an actress.

"Nick loved you. Don't forget. I was there in the hospital when you went in to see his body so I saw how much you cared. And I'm curious. _Why_? Why did you kill him?" That was what Julie really needed to know. That was what would help her sort through Nick's issues and put him back on the path to a safe, contented life.

"I don't know if I can explain it all. All I can say, Julie, is that I just- I couldn't take any more."

"What was it you couldn't take? All the love he was offering you? All the dreams he had for you and your baby?"

"Julie, I don't expect you to understand."

"The boy worshipped you."

"He worshipped an idea he had. I was pretending like things were okay or things were going to be better, but he owned me, and every day he would tighten his grip on my life until I couldn't breathe."

"Why didn't you just tell him to back off?"

"Because that would have set him off, and who knows what he would have done? He was trying to take Ariana away from Will and Sonny. He took control of my life, and Ariana's life."

"So you murdered him." Julie was not impressed. Gabi wasn't telling her what Nick had done, or what Nick had threatened to do. She was only telling Julie what Nick might have done in some alternate universe.

"I'm so sorry. I know what I did was wrong, and I can't change it, Julie. I'm sorry."

"Well, you've got that right."

"I know that you loved him, and I'm so very sorry, Julie," Gabi whimpered.

"It's time to go," said Hope quietly, and she made to guide Julie from the room. Julie let her; Gabi clearly wasn't willing or able to offer a real explanation. At the last minute, though, Julie turned back to Gabi.

"I hope you hate yourself for the rest of your life," Julie told Gabi, and she obediently followed Hope to her desk. "Do you believe a single word she said?" she demanded when they were alone.

"What I believe is that Nick didn't deserve to die," said Hope. "That's what I believe. Julie, Nick had a lot of emotional problems. From what I dug up during the investigation, he was making life hell for a lot of people, including the people that cared about him."

"So. A lot of people wanted him dead." Hope didn't respond. She didn't have to. Hope and Julie seated themselves on opposite sides of Hope's desk with its files and coffee mugs and out-dated photographs of Ciara. "Well, no. No. It's wrong. I don't care what Nick did. He was sorry for it. He repented. He told me so. He deserved to have a second chance. Gabi saw to it that he didn't get one. So Gabi doesn't deserve to get one either."

* * *

><p>The next day, Hope called Julie and suggested that they meet at Sonny's coffeehouse. It was near the police station and the courthouse, and they would be able to have the formal, required discussion about Gabi's plea deal. Gabi would be sentenced to twenty years- as long again as her life had been so far- but Hope did not see Julie as accepting that sentence as nearly harsh enough. Once again, Hope wished that Julie had gone with Doug to Las Vegas or on a cruise to Alaska or somewhere that wasn't Salem.<p>

"You said it was important?" asked Julie after gesturing that Ben should bring her a black coffee.

"It is. Gabi's entering a plea this morning at the courthouse. As Nick's family, you have a right to object to the deal."

She handed the paperwork to Julie and counted down in her head. _Five, four, three, two..._

"This plea deal is a joke, all right?" said Julie.

"The D.A. made the offer and Gabi accepted it. I imagine the judge will approve it and sentence Gabi today," said Hope as mildly as she could, though she had never noticed another person's calmness making Julie calm even once in her life.

"Do Joshua and Jessica even know about this? Have you told them about this?" demanded Julie.

"I haven't heard from them. Actually, I haven't heard from anyone else in the family. So I'm assuming that they're okay with it and they don't have a problem with it."

"How can they not have a problem with it? It's as though Gabi would be paying a parking fine instead of being punished for committing murder."

"She'll be spending years behind bars."

"Not nearly long enough, Hope. This isn't justice and you know it. This is anything but. How did this insane deal even come to be?"

"Well, the D.A., the mayor, and the governor were concerned about bad publicity. They don't want a trial dragging on."

"Outrageous. Absolutely outrageous. It's as though Nick's life wasn't worth anything at all. He was a brilliant, he was kind, he was trying to-"

"And a maniac," interrupted Ben as he returned with Julie's coffee. Hope flinched. Ben was going to make this harder, not easier. "The first time I saw the guy he was attacking Abigail. His own cousin."

"Yes, I know who Abigail is," said Julie, cool enough to freeze her coffee then and there.

"Well, no man should talk to a woman, or anyone, like he did," announced Ben.

"Have I asked for your opinion?" asked Julie.

"Will you excuse us, please?" Hope asked Ben.

"Sure. I'm sorry," said Ben, and he left.

"I suppose he expects a tip," sneered Julie. "What? The busboy? A virtual stranger thinks he's qualified to put in his two cents? Oh, God, everyone's ready to pour it on now that Nick's dead."

"Nick made a lot of people angry."

"Why are you making excuses for everyone? Whose side are you on?"

"Julie, I am devastated that Nick's dead. Can't you see that? But we can't pretend that Nick was innocent in all of this. I don't see how a long, drawn-out trial is going to help anyone."

"I disagree."

"I'd better get going. Gabi's due in court soon. I'm guessing I'll see you there?"

"Oh, you'll certainly see me there. I really don't care what anybody else thinks. I'm going to make sure Nick gets the justice he deserves."

Hope ran back to her office, dialing her phone as she went. Aunt Marie, Jessica, and Josh had not returned her voicemails or responded to the copy of the plea deal she had overnighted them. She assumed, as she'd told Julie, that this meant they had no objection to the deal and simply did not want to be disturbed in their grief.

Julie wasn't going to listen to Hope; she'd made that abundantly clear. But she might listen to Nick's bereaved parents and grandmother, and that might spare everyone involved a drawn out trial that wouldn't bring Nick back.

_I really need to talk to you. I'm sorry. I know you're grieving. This is important, _Hope texted Jessica before calling her.

Jessica answered right away. Hope hadn't heard her cousin's voice in years. It was sad and disconcerting.

"I'm sorry to interrupt you," Hope told her. "And of course, I'm so sorry for your loss."

"Thank you, Hope," said Jessica, and Hope tried to feel out whether Jessica had been crying.

"I know the words don't mean anything. I know that what you're going through is as hard as it gets, and-"

An image of Zack rose unbidden before her eyes. Zack was laughing and dancing. Bo was dancing with him, and Zack was trying to imitate his father's moves.

Hope longed for the days when she and Jessica had been the kind of cousins who shared ice cream sundaes instead of the kind of cousins who shared the experience of outliving a beloved son.

"Thank you, Hope," Jessica repeated. "You said it was important that we talk," she prompted.

"Gabi Hernandez is being sentenced today."

"Mmm," said Jessica non-commitally.

"She's agreed to a plea deal that will keep her in prison for about twenty years. She has a one-year-old daughter and she'll miss that little girl's childhood entirely."

"I saw the copy of the agreement that you sent."

"Then you have no objections? You don't feel that the sentence was too light?"

"I'm sure that the police and the attorneys made the right decision," said Jessica.

"Julie doesn't feel that way. I spoke to Julie this morning and she intends to do everything in her power to make sure that there is an extended trial and that Gabi is sentenced to life. She wants to punish Gabi, but I'm concerned that a very public trial where Nick's character is attacked at every turn would punish other people as well. Including you. Julie won't listen to me, but you're Nick's mother."

"I've been trying to call Julie," Jessica conceded, surprising Hope. "Her phone has been off."

"Stay with me," said Hope. "I'll get you through to her so you can get through to her."

* * *

><p>"I have every reason to believe the plea deal will go ahead as planned," EJ was saying when Julie arrived at the courthouse.<p>

"Not if I have anything to do with it," Julie corrected. She glanced distastefully at Gabi, who as usual looked young and innocent. "You took Nick's future away from him, so I am here to do the same to you."

"Julie. This isn't the time or the place," reprimanded Hope as if she were the (step)parent and Julie were the child.

"You're right," agreed Julie. "I'll have my say in the courtroom. And by the time I'm finished, that judge will be convinced that that doe-eyed little guttersnipe does not deserve to get away with murder."

"Gabi has taken full responsibility for her actions, which is more than I can say Nick ever did," said Rafe from where he stood with his arm draped around his little sister's shoulders.

"You call this full responsibility?"

"Ten to twenty years in prison isn't enough for you? Think about how long Nick served for taking another man's life."

"A despicable man."

"Exactly," drawled Rafe.

"And Nick was not in his right mind then-"

"-Because he was on drugs?-"

"But Gabi knew exactly what she was doing. Didn't you? I want the whole world to know how much love was in Nick's heart and that people loved him."

"I know that," minced Gabi.

"Then you should understand that we want our justice and I'm going to make sure we get it. We let Nick down when he was alive and I'm not going to let him down now."

That was when Hope handed Julie her phone and pointed Julie in the direction of a quiet hallway.

"Hello?" asked Julie.

"What are you doing?" asked Marie.

"I'm making sure that little Gabi pays for what she did to Nick. I'm surprised that you have a problem with that."

"Have you somehow forgotten that what was allegedly done to Nick is not the same as-"

"Is not the same as something we should discuss on a police officer's cellular phone with a signal that goes God knows where!" Julie interrupted.

"Drop it now or I will make sure you never visit Nick... Nick's grave again. You cannot pull all of us into this any further. Do you think Nick would thank you for punishing Gabi? If he wanted her punished, wouldn't he have told you who shot him?"

"As everyone is more than happy to remind me, Nick had a habit of making bad decisions."

"We're lucky that doesn't run in the family," said Marie dryly. "Listen, Hope called Jessica to get her to talk you out of this. We've all been ignoring Hope's calls for obvious reasons."

"The obvious reason being that you're grieving," said Julie, just in case the call really was being monitored. "You're right, Marie. I'm… grieving too. And sometimes I make bad decisions."

"Come back and visit us," said Marie, easy to forgive. "I think it would do us all good."

And so Julie entered the courtroom to watch Gabi's sentence but said nothing

"Thank you. You don't know how grateful I am," gushed Gabi as she left.

"Don't thank me, Gabi. Nick's parents, his grandmother, they're extraordinarily generous people. For some reason they felt they had to call me and tell me they didn't want to see an extended trial, they didn't want to see Nick's name dragged through the mud again by your unscrupulous attorney."

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"Sorry. It doesn't cut it. I know Nick was far from perfect but he loved you. So I treated you like family because I thought you loved him. So now, I hope you serve every minute of your twenty years, and in that twenty years perhaps you'll develop a modicum of empathy for what Nick went through."

Julie knew that even if Nick had really been dead, Gabi would have served a fraction of her time. Since Nick was alive, sooner rather than later he would insist on revealing himself to cut Gabi's time further. Gabi would be free before her daughter started preschool.

But Gabi didn't have to know that right now.

_**TBC**_.

* * *

><p><strong>Auxiliary Disclaimer:<strong> _Some dialog in this chapter was taken directly from the June 10, 2014, and June 12, 2014 episodes of Days of Our Lives. I'm trying to fit Julie's "real" Salem appearances in around what she's doing in my fic as much as possible._

**Author's Note:** _Since everyone who I know for a fact is reading this is an EJ fan, I do want to emphasize that Hope's distrust for DiMeras in general and Julie's dislike for EJ in particular are theirs, not mine. This is not going to be a fic with chapter after chapter of every character hating on EJ (although I admit that I have written fics like that in the past). It just got a little harsh this time because Julie is not always the most even-handed, forgiving Salemite in town. _


	5. The Diagnosis

**Part 5: The Diagnosis**

With Julie in Salem, Nick's room was always quiet. Josh and Jessica and Marie spoke to each other, and to Nick, of course. Sometimes Nick even answered, although more often he seemed to hear and understand but have nothing to say. Belatedly, Marie realized that Julie's badgering had prompted the lion's share of Nick's engagement with all of them. Perhaps Julie had been right to push Nick harder and harder.

Julie was going to gloat about this when Marie admitted it.

As if to make Marie second-guess her second-guessing, Nick chose that moment to sit up and look at her on his own initiative. "Grandma?"

"Hi. How are you doing?"

"What happened to Julie? She hasn't been here."

"She's in Salem for a few days, but she'll be back soon. You know your cousin Julie doesn't like to leave people alone once she's decided that they need pestering." Marie tried to keep her tone light in conspiratorial. It wouldn't do to let Nick know that his silence was devastating and she was desperate to keep him talking.

"What's she doing in Salem?" Nick's eyes opened just a little wider, but Marie didn't entirely like the glint in them. It gave what should have been an innocent question too much of an edge. Nick already knew- or suspected that he knew- why Julie had vanished so abruptly on the heels of an argument about who had shot him. He wasn't asking Marie for information. He was testing Marie and feeling out his situation.

She would have to go with honesty, limited to as small doses as possible. There would be no prevaricating that Julie was just catching up with the rest of the family even though that was undoubtedly true. "Your cousin Hope found out who shot you and Julie wanted to be there at the hearing."

"Whose hearing?" Nick demanded. "Who did Hope arrest?"

"It was Gabi," Marie said quietly. "But you knew that, didn't you?"

"She has a baby. She can't go to prison. Even if she- even though she hates me that much, she can't go to prison." The words tumbled over each other. "She can't go to prison. It's going to ruin her. It's going to ruin her for Ari, and Ari needs her. Is the hearing over yet?"

"Yes," admitted Marie. "I just spoke to Julie. Gabi accepted a plea deal. She'll be going to-"

"_She can't go to prison!"_

"She has to," said Marie as gently as possible. "According to Hope, she understands that. Maybe while she's in prison she can get help learning that there are ways of handling problems that don't involve attempted murder."

Nick shook his head and pushed himself further upright. The part of Marie that had been trained as a nurse was pleased by his ability to move but concerned about how pale he looked. "That's what they said to me. They said I'd get help in prison. No one gets help in prison, Grandma. _No one._ That's not what prison is there for. It's there to punish you and torture you. It's there to make sure you never feel safe or happy again. It's there to make sure you never feel like _yourself_ again. I can't let that happen to someone who has a one year old daughter. I can't let that happen to someone I care about. Someone I _cared_ about."

"It's out of our hands, Nick. Gabi and her attorney have made the decision that they thought was best."

"Who represented her? EJ? He probably wanted her to go to prison so she doesn't incriminate him. Or Sami. Or Kate. Or Will. That's how these things go. The people who are really out to hurt someone will just do it again, and the people who made a mistake, their lives are ruined."

"There have been so many times that I thought my life was ruined," said Marie quietly. "Every single time it turned out that I was just starting a new chapter."

Nick blinked, as if what Marie had said had nothing to do with the matter at hand. "Do you think the judge would reconsider if I spoke on Gabi's behalf?" he asked instead. He spoke ever more quickly. "I could tell him I deserved it. I could tell him that we were having an argument and there was an accident. I could tell him someone else was there and Gabi only thought she shot me."

"Gabi has already told them the truth," Marie pointed out. "And I think Gabi has made it very clear that she does not want you to be involved in her major life decisions any longer."

With that, the line of Nick's jaw hardened.

"I'm not trying to be cruel, Nick," said Marie.

"I get that," said Nick. "I know." He eased himself back down onto his bed. The color returned almost instantly to his face, to Marie's relief. "I'd like to be alone please, Grandma. You don't have to guard me."

"I wasn't trying to. I was just trying to keep you company," lied Marie, because in reality she and Josh and Jessica had worked out a schedule to make sure that at least one of them was there all the time.

"I appreciate that, but, please. I need to think."

"All right," Marie agreed.

"Go home and rest or something. You must have things to do since you've been here with me so much."

"There's nowhere I'd rather be," she told Nick. She kissed his cheek and left the room.

She would have preferred to sit in the hallway and await the moment he screamed in his sleep or interrogated a nurse or tried to sign himself out of the Smith Center. Lurking in the hallway, though, was not permitted because so many of the Smith Center's patients were quite famous. A hall monitor of sorts would escort her to the waiting room or the lobby if she did not escort herself.

As Marie crossed the parking lot, her attention caught hard on a dark-haired young woman. The woman's bag was emblazoned with the Smith Center's subtle insignia; she was clearly an employee returning from lunch. As much time as Marie had spent in the Smith Center for the past several weeks, it was only natural that many of the employees would look familiar to her.

This one, though- this girl, this woman- was different. Marie knew that she had seen her before and she knew that she knew her from elsewhere.

The young woman felt Marie's gaze on her and turned to meet Marie's eyes. Marie sought recognition there, but there was nothing but a polite smile and nod.

"Have you been helping with my grandson?" Marie asked, her curiosity getting the better of her.

"What kind of treatment is he getting?" the woman asked. It never ceased to amuse Marie that at the Smith Center, no one asked for names. They would identify a patient by any other means.

"He was shot in the chest. He's only just beginning to get up and around."

"Then I won't have worked with him yet. I don't see the more intensive care trauma patients until they've been moved off that hallway." The girl pointed toward the wing where Nick was staying.

"All right," nodded Marie. "I'm sorry to interrupt you. You looked familiar to me, and I couldn't place you."

"I just have one of those faces," said the girl. It could not have been less true. She was beautiful. There was nothing average about her. "Have a good day."

"You too," Marie called as she got into her car and headed for the mall. She had no intention of going far, or staying gone long. Nick might want to be alone, but that didn't mean it was a good idea.

* * *

><p>Nick forced himself to count to twenty-five once his grandmother had left the room. He tried to remind himself that patience was a virtue and that he had been lucky she had left at all; he couldn't remember the last time he'd been alone. He hadn't cared until today.<p>

He couldn't let the same things that had happened to him happen to Gabi, not while little Ari was involved.

It wasn't that he wanted Gabi back. He could take a hint.

Okay, he couldn't take a hint, but at least he understood the meaning of bullets in his back and chest.

It was just that he couldn't have Gabi and Ari on his conscience. His conscience was enough of a mess as it was.

When he was sure that Marie was not going to open the door as quickly as she had closed it, he tried again to raise himself to a sitting position. It hurt- it always hurt- but he found that he could. The next steps came easily. Legs over the bed. Standing upright, but with one hand on the wall for balance.

He made it to the door and opened it just a crack to look out. He shuddered at what he saw and closed the door just as quickly. The hallways was guarded. Oh, they probably called it _monitored_, but it all came to the same thing.

The door was out. That left the window.

The room was on the first floor, and the window did open… as long as the opener knew a security code that would keep an alarm from sounding.

Nick smirked to himself. He would crack the code.

Indeed, it took no time at all. Computer security was not what people thought it was.

He fell, hard, when he tried to climb out the window, but he got back up and tried again.

He fell even harder when he got out the window.

He took stock of his surroundings as he lay on the ground and decided to head for the fenced in garden rather than sneaking back into the building. In the days of mobile devices, a smartphone would do him just as much good as the prison-hospital's main office. Surely someone had set one aside while weeding or wandering or daydreaming.

The garden gate swung open easily to reveal row upon row of roses surrounding a fountain on one end and a statue of a naked women on the other. Tucked against the back fence was a dark green shed. Nick made a beeline for it.

The code to open the shed was the same as the code that opened the window, backwards. He laughed. "Why are people stupid?" he wondered aloud.

To his delight, the shed came equipped with its own iPad. A few taps brought him to the _Salem Spectator_'s website. Gabi's picture was on the front page along with his own.

He was just starting to read the article when his strength failed and he passed out.

When he awoke, he was back in his bed and his father was watching him from across the room.

"I admire your ingenuity, Nick," said Josh. "Your ingenuity and your tenacity and your analytical mind. I always have. But I think you'll understand if your mother and grandmother and I take a few steps to keep you from going AWOL again."

Nick wasn't in the military and Nick didn't intend to follow orders, at least not until he'd done everything he could to help Gabi.

* * *

><p>"I'm sorry, Jessica," Marie told her daughter for the fifth time as they sat in an office surrounded by the Smith Center's administrator, a charge nurse, a psychiatrist, and Nick's doctor. "I never should have left him alone. He asked, and I didn't want him to feel like he was completely out of control…"<p>

"It's all right," said Jessica for the fifth time. "Josh is with him now. Nick will stay where he is."

"You will be permitted to stay with him for as long as you like, around the clock," the administrator assured them for the fifth time. "Nonetheless, we'd like to know what we can do to assure you that nothing like this will happen again."

"You're the experts," said Marie. She had grown up watching her father run a hospital, and the process was deeply ingrained in her. She would listen to the proposal before raising any concerns.

The administrator nodded. "The alarm on the window has been adjusted so that it will always sound even if it is opened with the code."

"I have every confidence that my son would be able to disarm the alarm if he really wanted to," said Jessica.

"That's why, with your permission, we would like to put a surveillance camera outside the window. Our cameras are always monitored and we can make it clear that there should be a response from security should that window open."

"Can the camera be angled so that it won't record what happens inside the room while the window is closed?"

"We believe so." Jessica and Marie looked at each other and nodded. The plan was acceptable. "Dr. James would like to discuss the medical implications of this development as well."

"Medical implications?" Jessica asked. They had already been assured that Nick had suffered bruises but no real setbacks.

"Nick's mental state is not what we thought it was. He was desperate enough to leave the premises that he was willing to throw himself out a window wearing nothing but a hospital gown and keep moving until he fainted from the pain."

"I'm not positive that he was trying to leave the premises," said Marie. "He may have been looking for information and that's all. I had just told him that his former wife had been sentenced to prison for shooting him. Evidently he wasn't satisfied with my assurances that there was nothing he could do to help her."

"He hadn't previously expressed any desire to help her?"

"He hadn't previously admitted to remembering that she was the one who shot him. He thought that she hadn't been caught," Marie clarified.

"He's been very quiet," Jessica added. "Very sad. Depressed, which I think makes perfect sense under the circumstances. He hadn't shown much initiative to do anything, let alone crack a code, get himself out of bed on his own, and jump out a window."

"I was relieved when he started talking to me this afternoon," Marie agreed. "All of a sudden he was more like himself. Asking questions, coming up with plans, very high energy."

Dr. James, the psychiatrist, caught the eyes of both the other doctor and the nurse. Then he turned his attention to Marie and Jessica. "Has Nick ever been evaluated for bipolar disorder?"

Marie's stomach dropped as Dr. James' words washed over her. She was a nurse herself; she'd spent all of her life around medicine; and she was painfully, personally aware of the history of mental illness in their family. She _was_ the history of mental illness in their family.

She should have noticed.

She saw her own guilt and shame reflected in her daughter's face, and she took Jessica's hand.

"No objections to starting him on lithium, then?" Dr. James asked the room at large.

Jessica shook her head. "I can't believe we didn't consider that before."

"You both have medical backgrounds, correct?" Marie and Jessica nodded. "So you know that this is a condition that almost always takes years to diagnose. In Nick's case, the first real signs of trouble resulted in him going to prison where there were all kinds of other traumas to mask the underlying problem. That's if he even is bipolar."

"He is," said Jessica numbly. "I'm sure of it. He matches the profile exactly. He was twenty five years old when he went to prison, and that's a magic age for bipolar disorder."

"There is no magic age," said Dr. James gently.

"That's a very common age for symptoms to manifest."

"Yes, it is," Dr. James admitted. "And as I said, it is also very common for someone with bipolar disorder to end up in the hospital years after symptoms arise before there is a diagnosis. I remind you again that at this point I'm making a guess, not a diagnosis."

"Thank you, Dr. James," said Jessica, and Marie could tell that Jessica was still convinced that there could be no other solution.

Marie was inclined to agree with her.

* * *

><p>Hope put off calling Chelsea with a final update until the afternoon that Ciara presented her with a St. Luke's Academy form to be signed.<p>

"Just sign at the bottom," Ciara instructed.

"I'd prefer to read it first, thank you," said Hope as she fumbled for her glasses.

Ciara heaved a long-suffering sigh, as if no child had ever been saddled with a more unreasonable mother.

It soon became clear why Ciara would have preferred that Hope rubber stamp the report. "It says here that you failed last week's art project," said Hope, as if Ciara did not know.

"That happened in the past and there's nothing we can do about it now," said Ciara sagely.

"As a matter of fact, it says right here that because you turned in all of your other assignments on time, you can have an extension to submit this one by tomorrow." Ciara made a face. "What was the assignment?"

"_Draw a picture of your family_." Disdain dripped from Ciara's every word. "I'm not five years old. Kids my age are pretty much over that, except Johnny, and I really think there's something wrong with him."

"What have I told you about talking about your cousins like that?" Hope bit back a sigh and decided to pick her battles. "You know what? Never mind. Why didn't you want to draw a picture of your family?"

"I told you. It's a baby assignment."

"So you should have been able to do it in no time flat."

Ciara glared petulantly.

"Did you not want to think about how your dad isn't here?" Hope guessed. She didn't want to put the idea into Ciara's head if it wasn't the case, but she was fairly sure that she was right. She noticed Bo's absence every minute of every day. She'd have been a fool to think that Ciara felt any differently.

"Every time I started to draw him it made me mad because he's not here anymore."

"I understand that." She understood it all too well. Ciara must have sensed as much, because all of a sudden her aggression fell away and she sat next to Hope at the kitchen table. "Your dad is still your dad and he still loves you whether he's here or not. You know that, right?"

"I know that," said Ciara. "But it's not anybody else's business. I don't want Chase to look at it and say I shouldn't have drawn him because he isn't here." She scowled.

"Chase hasn't been saying things like that, has he? Not since the last time his father made him apologize to you in the Pub?"

"No. He's okay, mostly," conceded Ciara.

"It must be hard for Chase, too," Hope mused. "Deciding whether or not to draw his mom."

"He didn't have to decide that," said Ciara smartly. "His dad decided for him. His dad doesn't even like him to mention his mom."

"Well, you don't have that problem. You can draw you and me because it's just the two of us in this house right now, or you can draw the whole Horton-Brady family tree and make your teacher's head explode when she tries to figure it out. All you need to do is draw something."

"Can I draw cousin Nick with blood gushing out of him like Allie said?" asked Ciara innocently.

Hope drew in her breath sharply and Ciara laughed. "Just kidding."

"Thank God," Hope muttered. "If you draw Nick, you draw him like you remember him. He's still part of your family while he's still in your heart."

"I'm not doing the whole Horton-Brady tree. That would take forever and I didn't want to do this in the first place. I just want to be normal. Mom, Dad, brother, sister, and me."

"Then draw that," said Hope quickly. "Draw you and me and your dad and your brother Shawn and your sister Chelsea."

"I'll go get my colored pencils and the photo album."

Hope prayed as hard as she could that Ciara only needed the photo album to get a good look at her much older brother and sister, and not because she was starting to forget Bo.

Hope supervised as Ciara worked, just in case Ciara changed her mind about throwing in blood or bullets. Ciara, though, quickly sketched a perfectly standard family portrait. Hope did sense a certain sarcasm in the rainbow and butterflies Ciara drew across the top of the picture.

Ciara left the photo album open to a large photograph that had been one of Bo's favorites. In it, Ciara was about four years old and perched on Chelsea's lap. It had been taken not long before Chelsea had left Salem for good. Ciara was beaming radiantly; Hope recalled that Chelsea had been teasing that Ciara was much too big to be Chelsea's baby sister.

Life had been much simpler then. Ciara had been much simpler then. She had been such a happy little girl who never questioned her status as one who was universally adored. At that moment, forever frozen in time, Chelsea had been the one doing the adoring.

With a final glance at Ciara, Hope grabbed her phone and slipped into the living room.

"Hi, Hope," answered Chelsea on the third ring. "Is everything okay?"

That question that Bo had doomed his children to ask first, always.

"No change," Hope confirmed. "No change, but I promised to keep you updated. Gabi Hernandez pled guilty like we expected and the judge gave her twenty years. You probably already read that in the _Spectator_ online."

"I did," said Chelsea. "But thank you for calling. Sometimes the papers get it wrong or whatever."

"That's true." Hope paused; Chelsea didn't say anything. "How are you doing?"

"Okay," said Chelsea. The standard lie of people who were not okay. Hope used it enough herself.

"Anything exciting happen today?" Hope tried.

"I saw a woman in a parking lot who said that she knew me from somewhere. I told her we didn't know each other, except she did look familiar. I just don't know from where," Chelsea attempted gamely.

"Maybe you'll see her again and ask if she's ever been to Salem."

"Maybe."

The silence between them stretched again until Hope broke it. "Your sister is just putting the finishing touches on a family portrait for her art class at school. She got out a photo album so she could get you just right. Want me to take a picture and text you?"

"Yeah!"

Hope walked back into the kitchen and took the photo then and there.

"Who are you sending that to?" Ciara demanded.

"Your sister Chelsea."

Ciara gestured that Hope should give her the phone; Hope obliged, surreptitiously pushing the speakerphone button as she did.

"Hi Chelsea," said Ciara. "Did they make you draw stupid family portraits when you were in school, too?"

"I'm afraid they did," said Chelsea, her voice tinny and disembodied on the speaker.

"How did you decide who to draw?"

"It was pretty easy when I was your age. I had my adoptive parents- the Bensons- and me. My family didn't get complicated until I got older."

"My family's complicated now."

"You always were precocious."

"No. This hot mess _made_ me precocious. Maybe I should have drawn Cousin Nick walking into the Horton Town Square bleeding to death and pumped full of bullets after all." She'd gotten a reaction from Hope, it seemed, and had decided that it was worth trying the same material on Chelsea.

There was a rattle on the other side of the connection. Hope would have bet all her seniority at the police department that Chelsea had dropped her phone.

"Ciara!" she whispered. "We can talk about Nick, you and me, but you need to stop saying that to other people who loved him."

"He's not Chelsea's cousin," Ciara protested.

"But she loved him." Hope shifted gears. "Chelsea? Honey? Can you hear me?"

"Yeah, sorry," said Chelsea detachedly. "I'm such a klutz, I tripped and dropped my phone."

"I'm sorry," said Ciara, the apology unprompted and sincere. "I didn't know you loved him."

"Thank you, Ciara. That's a wonderful picture you drew." And with that, there was a standard exchange of pleasantries and an end to the conversation.

* * *

><p>Chelsea hadn't been planning to go out that night. She had reached the point in her life that she had sworn she would never reach- the point where she would just as soon go to bed early and be ready for work the next morning. After talking to Hope and Ciara, though, she knew that she wouldn't sleep.<p>

She found her clingiest dress, her highest heels, and her most expensive perfume. She would stay at a club until closing, come home to change for work, and go to an early breakfast at her favorite restaurant before driving to the Smith Center.

No images of Nick bleeding to death allowed.

_**TBC**_


	6. Open Door

**Part 6: Open Door**

Josh was standing vigil when it was time for Nick's morning checkup. There was something Josh liked about the way hospitals ran early in the morning when there was a schedule to be kept and a thousand things to be done. It felt familiar to his military mind.

"What is that?" Nick asked, fixing the nurse with a steely gaze. He pointed at the collection of pills he had been directed to swallow—antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, and one brand new pill. "That one's different."

The nurse blanched under the implied accusation. Nick had been so ill, and then so resigned, since he had come to the Smith Center, that most of the staff had never heard him speak without being spoken to. They certainly weren't used to a raised voice, a question, and eye contact from him.

"It's lithium," the nurse told him. "Dr. James thought it would be a good idea to start you on it."

In the corner of the room, Josh watched the wheels turn in his son's head. Nick read everything and remembered everything. If he had even once picked up a medical journal or a science book that discussed lithium even in passing…

"That's used to treat bipolar disorder," said Nick with a horrible hollow echo replacing the suspicion in his voice.

"Yes, it is," said the nurse, but Josh could see that Nick didn't need confirmation. "We'll set it aside if you want to discuss things further with the doctors before you start on it."

"Discuss things further? That would be difficult considering that no one discussed things with me in the first place."

Josh stepped forward and Nick shot him a preemptive glare. "Your mother and grandmother and I authorized it."

"You had me declared mentally incompetent?"

"No, we made decisions that you were not able to make while you were unresponsive. This is the most I've heard your voice since you've been here, Nicky."

"So you decided that it wasn't worth telling me what you were going to do to me."

"You heard the woman. Don't take it if you aren't ready." Josh said, even though a part of him wanted to order Nick to take the medicine and like it, and eat his vegetables while he was at it. (A false comparison, though; Nick had never protested eating his vegetables. He hadn't protested much of anything. Nick had been an easy kid to raise.)

"But you think I should take it?"

"I think it's worth a try to see if it helps you," said Josh, pleased with his own tact. "That's the scientific method, isn't it? We run the experiment and look at the evidence. See if Dr. James' theory works."

Without another word, Nick swallowed all five pills in one gulp and chased them with the glass of water the nurse handed him.

Josh didn't get another word out of Nick for the rest of the morning.

* * *

><p>Hope was surprised, but pleased, when Aiden asked her to join him for midmorning coffee to discuss the Saint Luke's Academy Gala. So far the plans for the Gala had been an unmitigated disaster, and yet she had begun to look forward to meeting Aiden to discuss plans of attack.<p>

She had gotten to the point that she enjoyed Aiden's company. It was bizarre.

It was also not something she planned to share with Ciara any time soon, and she assumed that Aiden felt the same way about Chase. Their children might not be in the habit of taunting and physically attacking one another any longer, but that didn't mean that they were up for playdates while their parents shared a cup of coffee.

(It was always coffee with Aiden, always, she was finding. The domino enthusiasts who refused to negotiate on the matter of the ballroom they needed for the Gala, Aiden seemed to view as an enjoyable challenge. The threat of a few hours without coffee he viewed as impossible to overcome.)

"Hey," said Aiden as he pulled out the chair opposite Hope in the Pub. "I'm glad we could manage another meeting today."

"Yeah." Hope took in their pile of thick binders. "Everything we need for the Gala and the opening ceremony of the Olympics." She flipped open a binder only to see Jennifer's name along with Eve Donovan's. She looked a question at Aiden, who pulled the document away and replaced it with one relevant to the task at hand.

"I'm doing some research for your cousin's case," said Aiden mildly. "I like her. I can see why the two of you are so close."

"You know what I just realized?" asked Hope, even though she hadn't just realized it. "You represented JJ, and now Jen. You know all this personal stuff about my family, and I don't know anything about yours." Aiden laughed, but didn't answer. "Why is that, huh, Aiden?" She cupped her chin in her hand and smiled at him.

"This is a list of local merchants we hit up for the silent auction," said Aiden as if she hadn't spoken. "If you could just look that over."

Hope wasn't ready to let it drop. "What a surprise. I asked you about your family and you talk about something else, anything else."

"I just don't like being interrogated."

"Believe me," said Hope. "You'd know if you were being interrogated. I was just asking a question. Friends do do that sometimes, you know?"

"Mmm hmm."

As usual, Hope mentally filed away Aiden's non-response before conceding to him for the moment. "All right, I guess we'd better get back to work here. Do we have any other tasks we need to do, comrade?"

"You can check this over." Aiden passed yet another sheet of paper across the table. Hope was certain they had killed an entire forest's worth of trees preparing for this Gala.

She glanced at it in disbelief. "This is…"

"This is the checklist we agreed to when we first started working together, when we agreed to call it the impossible dream. Look at everything we've done since we started working as a team. We may not have righted every wrong, but we put together a hell of a gala."

"It's almost done." Hope knew what they had achieved, of course, but she had not yet seen in written out in black and white adorned with firm blue check marks in their own handwriting. "It seemed impossible."

"Against almost impossible odds, the duo persevered," Aiden narrated playfully. "They booked the venue, they hired the caterer-"

"And they ordered the helium balloons in the Saint Luke's school colors."

"In a word, they triumphed. If there ever was a moment that called for a high five, this was it."

He held up his hand; Hope slapped him five, adding a flourish and a cheer. In a world that was messy and chaotic, the satisfaction of finishing something made her almost lightheaded with giddiness.

She refused to entertain the possibility that the lightheadedness had any connection to the feeling of Aiden's skin against her own.

* * *

><p>Julie, freshly returned from Salem, convinced Josh and Jessica to make themselves scarce for the afternoon. Any child, no matter his age, had a desire to please his parents, and that was certainly true of Nick; why else had he devoted most of his adult life to hiding his troubles from them? He might be more inclined to talk to Julie, who was well aware of what had gone on in Salem. Julie even agreed to let Marie supervise her.<p>

Julie flinched when she saw the expression on Nick's face, but she asked him brightly whether he had missed her, and didn't she get a welcome back?

"Well, I'm glad you're back, Julie," said Marie when Nick was silent. "And I think that new dress looks lovely on you."

"Your grandmother was always the kind of person who noticed things like that," Julie told Nick with a smile. "You wouldn't think that you could find a dress worth buying at a shopping mall in an airport terminal while you miss your connecting flight and you have to wait for the next one, but..." She trailed off with a shrug. "Such is life. You find things where you wouldn't expect them."

"I told Nick that the other day," Marie said kindly. "I told him that so many times I thought my life was over, when it was really just changing."

Julie reached out to caress Nick's hair, but he so rigidly, fixedly tensed and avoided her gaze that she settled for running her hand along the top of his pillow. "Maybe it's time that you and I had that conversation I wanted to have the night you were shot. You can't get out of it forever."

"What conversation was that?" asked Marie, though Julie was quite sure Marie knew and was merely playing good cop.

"I was going to tell Nick all kinds of dirty family history about the failings of his storied ancestors," said Julie with a flourish. "It'll be better with you here. You'll keep me honest. More or less."

Marie smiled and gestured that Julie should begin. Julie did.

"I started with shoplifting. I didn't need a damn thing. My father would have bought me anything I asked for, and I didn't want the things I stole. That used to be my excuse when store security questioned me. 'Why would I steal that fur? I have nicer furs at home.'"

"How did that excuse work out for you?" teased Marie, since Nick wasn't going to ask.

"No one believed me, but it worked out fine because what I really wanted was attention and I didn't know how to ask. My father was at work all the time, my mother was busy with her social schedule, and everyone else was falling all over themselves to say how smart and popular and talented my brother was. If it hadn't been for my grandparents finally letting me move in with them I don't know what I would have done next."

"It would have been something worse than what you did do next?" asked Marie dryly.

Julie smiled and took Marie's hand. "If it hadn't been for my grandparents and my Aunt Marie. She was closer to my age than she was to my mother's, her sister's, you know that, right?"

"It used to bother Addie that we were so close," Marie remembered. "She felt like that was a criticism of her, so she would find every way she could to criticize me. I was engaged to a man named Tony Merritt at the time. Tony was a teacher and Addie would go on and on about how I should set my sights higher."

"She was jealous," put in Julie. "She loved my father, in a way, but that wasn't exactly her primary focus. His father, my grandfather Olson, was the richest man in Salem. Times were changing very quickly back then, back in the 60s. Marie deciding to get an advanced degree in biochemistry and marry a man just because she liked him— those weren't doors that were as wide open to her older sister."

"Addie wouldn't have wanted those things anyway. She thought she was proven right when Tony broke off our engagement the day before the wedding."

Julie and Marie noticed, together, the hint of interest in Nick's eyes. They were coming to a part of the family story he hadn't heard.

Marie nodded at Julie to confirm that this was a story she wanted to tell, and Julie squeezed her hand. "I was crushed when Tony left me. I wanted to die. I knew how many sleeping pills it would take, and I took them."

Nick gasped, and Marie grabbed his hand with her free one. "I bet you know the statistics," Marie continued. "Only a tiny percentage of suicide attempts by overdose succeed, even when you've been around medicine all your life and you know exactly what's supposed to work. So Tony's father, Craig, he felt guilty for what Tony had done. He wanted to take care of me and he married me himself."

A skeptical look crossed over Nick's face and it made Julie laugh, though not unkindly. "If you could have met the man, you wouldn't feel like that. I was only a teenager and I had a crush on Craig. There was one time I started going through Marie and Tony's wedding gifts when Marie wasn't home and I broke one. Craig helped me clean it up. I told him I would never get married because I wanted to travel the world and have adventures. I didn't want to be trapped and miserable like my parents. There hasn't been a day since that I haven't remembered what he said. He told me that people are different, and marriages are different, and my marriage might be the romance of the decade. So a few months later of course I was planning to elope. I'd met a boy named David Martin. The first time I saw him he was pumping gas at a station outside Salem."

"And that was attraction number one," said Marie. "If Addie couldn't stand that Tony was a teacher, how was she going to do with David being a mechanic?"

"It was not attraction number one," Julie said loftily. "Attraction number one was the smile. He had the cockiest smile, but his face was so intelligent and sensitive. He was a musician, a photographer. He was—"

"Nick doesn't care," Marie interrupted.

"He was forbidden fruit, I won't lie about that," said Julie easily. "Just going out for pizza with him in his hometown made me feel like I was taking my life in my hands."

"That's foreshadowing," said Marie. "It turns out that she was. The water supply up in Woodridge was contaminated. People died. The chills, the fever— I thought we were going to lose Julie too."

"I survived thanks to Grandpa and Marie. She took such good care of me."

"The hard part was fielding all of David's phone calls wanting to know if she was all right. He really did love her."

"And I loved him. So as I was saying, we were going to elope. Then Grandpa gave me one of his lectures, and I hesitated, David spent the night with my friend Susan. They didn't even like each other." A scowl twisted Julie's features fifty years after the fact. "She got pregnant, and that meant that they got married. Grandpa demanded that I be the maid of honor so I could get it through my head that I could never have David again. Susan wanted me there because she couldn't stand the idea of marrying David and she wanted the moral support. The irony, right? Grandpa practically ordered her to marry him."

"That seems cruel," said Nick quietly. He had long since stopped pretending that he wasn't listening.

"I certainly thought so. I still think so," said Julie just as quietly. "Tom Horton was a good man and a great man. He was also a product of his time, and he was not a perfect human being. None of us are. That's actually going to be the moral of this story, if you hadn't figured it out already."

"I guess there are still people who thought Gabi and Will should have had to get married because of Ari."

"Some of them malicious and some of them stupid, but all of them wrong. Now, your great-grandfather was neither malicious nor stupid, but he was wrong. He packed Susan and David off and hoped that they would find a way to live with each other and the baby."

"Meanwhile," said Marie. "I was pregnant too, and much happier about it than Susan was."

Concern flickered across Nick's face, and Julie could almost see him double-checking the family tree in his mind. If Marie's baby had lived, it would have been Nick's aunt or uncle. Nick knew, then, without being told, that this development would not end happily for Marie.

"He or she died?" asked Nick. Marie nodded. "I'm so sorry."

"It broke my heart all over again, worse than when Tony left. I had pinned all my hopes on that child. I thought that that child, that ready-made family, would be a magic bridge to normalcy that would make all of the bad feelings from my past vanish into the air."

Nick's eyes widened, and Marie squeezed his hand, which she still held. "There isn't much new under the sun, I'm afraid. If this baby had lived, he or she couldn't have put my life back together any more than Ari could have fixed yours if Will had let you raise her. When I lost that baby, though… I had hallucinations. I heard babies crying behind locked doors, babies crying everywhere." Marie swallowed hard at the memory.

"And to top it off, who should show his face in Salem again but Tony Merritt," scowled Julie. "Now this time, my mother wasn't the only one who had a problem with him, believe you me."

"Did he say why he'd left?" asked Nick.

"Oh yes," said Julie with a roll of her eyes. "He was being noble."

"He was," defended Marie.

"He was sick. It was cancer, and if you think that's a scary word now it was an even scarier word in 1965. He wanted to spare Marie by not telling her. You've heard how well she was spared."

"There wasn't one member of the family who hesitated to tell Tony that. His own father, though, of course Craig was sympathetic. Craig divorced me because he didn't want to stand in the way of Tony and me."

"Then Tony left town with his tail between his legs like the dog he was."

"He didn't exactly feel welcome."

"We didn't say he couldn't fight for you, but if he wasn't going to fight for you he had no business being with you, Marie, and that's the truth."

"So that left me jilted, divorced, without my baby, and with a suicide attempt and a history of depression-induced hallucinations. I was 24 years old," concluded Marie.

"Back to Susan's son," Julie picked up. "David and I never stopped seeing each other, but he did grow to care for Susan and the baby."

"He was a married man, though," said Nick with an annoyance that surprised Julie.

"I wasn't the first woman who didn't let that stop me and I won't be the last. I am not claiming to be perfect, Nick. I was jealous of Susan, and more than that I was jealous of the baby. That poor baby. David took him to the park to play on the swings, and David didn't understand that the baby was too small for the harness to keep him safe. The baby slipped out of the swing and he died. Susan went home to get clothes to bury her son, and when she came face to face with David, she shot him. She killed him. She killed the man who I believed with every fiber of my being would always be the only love of my life. Who do you suppose decided to defend her on murder charges?"

"Not Uncle Mickey?"

"Oh, yes, Uncle Mickey. Now I was the star witness for the prosecution, not that they really needed one. Susan had confessed. Still, I was delighted to do everything I could to send my former best friend to prison for the rest of her life. Uncle Mickey needed to discredit me, and what better way to do that than to reveal to the whole world that I was pregnant with David's baby? I know you're accustomed to thinking that I have no sense of shame, and usually you'd be right. But that kind of public humiliation, on the heels of losing David… I left town, and I gave my baby up for adoption. I didn't want to. Your grandfather was so convinced that it was the right thing."

"It wasn't?"

"It wasn't. Scott and Janet Banning were a beautiful couple, or so everyone said. Janet was dying, and who did they have taking care of little Bradley but Susan? Susan had all these ideas about the fragility of life, and she wanted to make amends to me for taking David's life. So I pretended that I believed in forgiveness and I went to see her, although really all I wanted to do was find out whether her heart condition was going to kill her any time soon. When I looked at Bradley all I could see was the baby I'd given up against my own instincts. Turns out I was right. Bradley was mine. Scott allowed me to rename him David after his biological father."

"Scott also allowed her to come in between him and Susan."

"Susan killed David's natural father. I was hardly being unreasonable, and the courts didn't think so either or they wouldn't have given me custody and barred Scott from seeing him if Susan was around. If Scott wanted his son, I was part of the package. Susan took David from me, so I took Scott from her. It didn't matter one bit that I didn't want Scott much more than I wanted those furs I used to steal from the department store."

"You were fond of Scott," said Marie.

"I was," Julie admitted. She softened. "It wasn't a marriage devoid of love, not at all. It was more a decision we made with our heads than with our hearts. The most important thing was getting my son back."

"It was around this same time that I gave your mother up for adoption as well," said Marie. "Women from good families simply did not raise their babies as single mothers at this point in time."

"Especially not if those women were nuns when they got pregnant," chimed in Julie. "You already know that part, right, Nick? Uncle Tommy was presumed dead, Marie had no way of remembering her brother properly because she was so much younger, and when he came back to town calling himself Mark-"

"I know, I know." Nick held up his hand to stop Julie.

"Running off and joining a convent really seemed like the only solution," said Marie.

"I get that," said Nick.

"Anyway, David and Jessica had a lot to bond over when they were older," Julie concluded.

"When did you meet Doug?"

"That happens next. Yes, I ignored my own marriage vows this time, and yes, you obviously know that my mother decided to mark the occasion of my father's death by marrying my fiance when we had an argument over my son. I lied, Nick. I cheated, I stole, I manipulated, I plotted revenge. Nothing you've done these past few years is likely to shock me."

"Sweetheart, by the time I was your age I had been so depressed that I had attempted suicide. I'd spent months clapping my hands over my ears screaming to drown out hallucinations. I'd tried to hide from life by joining a convent. If this diagnosis of bipolar disorder turns out to be the right one, I'm not likely to be convinced that this is the end of your life and you can never recover."

All of a sudden, Nick's face hardened again and he dropped Marie's hand. "So what you're saying is that I have the worst of both of you? Grandma's mental instability and Julie's total lack of morals."

Julie refused to be shocked. "I do think you have Marie's brains. That brilliant scientific mind that went straight from Tom to Marie to Jessica to you. I think you have Marie's compassion and sensitivity. Marie was always such a good listener. When I was a teenager, sometimes I felt like no one but Marie ever listened to me. She would hear me when I talked about David, and school, and how I just couldn't stand the idea of moving to Europe with my parents. You're like that, too. When you finished college and went to Salem to stay with Maggie, she used to call me and marvel at what a great listener you were whether it was to her or Mickey or Abby or one of your friends."

Marie picked up the thread easily. "I think you have Julie's ingenuity and her tenacity. Those are Josh's favorite words when he's describing you, always have been. When you want something, you stick it out. You find a way. You don't run and hide in a convent. You break out of a maximum security hospital when you can barely walk. Not that I condone that particular plan of yours, but it was impressive all the same."

"Is that really so bad? Being you?" asked Julie.

"Even if you've got something in common with a few silly old ladies?" completed Marie.

"What have I told you about that word, old?" asked Julie.

"I wasn't supposed to be like either of you," said Nick, surprising them. "I was supposed to be like my dad. I look like him, I talk like him. I was never going to join the military, and he never pushed me to, but he did always tell me…" Nick trailed off.

"What did Joshua tell you?" Julie prompted.

"That I should protect my mother. That she was fragile, that I should be strong."

"You are strong," said Julie.

"No one's strong all the time," said Marie. "You know the ornaments that the Hortons hang on the tree at Christmas?" Nick shrugged. "My mother always said that one of the things she liked was the way every ornament was alike, but different. Every ornament was fragile at the same time as it was strong. She thought it was a beautiful representation of life and family."

Nick shrugged again.

"Is that enough for today, maybe?" asked Marie.

Nick nodded.

"We'll give you some time to yourself, but do not try that stunt with the window again. They've made some improvements in security but I'd rather you didn't take that as a challenge."

"We can have part two tomorrow," Julie suggested. "If you think that I've never felt like I wasn't strong enough, I can disabuse you of that notion very quickly."

They kissed Nick goodbye and left him to his thoughts.

* * *

><p>Nick didn't like his thoughts very much.<p>

Nick much preferred, just as a matter of principle, trying to outsmart the new alarm someone had placed on his window.

* * *

><p>Chelsea had been working at the Smith Center for over a year, but she could count on one hand the number of times that she had been in the intensive care wing. That afternoon, though, she was asked to help out with a quick evaluation before she went home at the end of the day.<p>

The evaluation went smoothly and it was just a few minutes before five when she strolled through the hall on her way to the parking lot.

At first she ignored an alarm that wailed in one of the rooms she passed, but then a sign caught her eye; the patient was a flight risk and all staff were asked to pitch in to keep him safe.

She threw open the door without knocking; sure enough, a tall man was trying to manipulate the computerized window lock. Sensing her entrance, he turned to look at her.

"Oh my God," breathed Chelsea. "_Nick_."

_**TBC**_

* * *

><p><strong>Auxiliary Disclaimer<strong>: _Hope and Aiden's dialog is taken almost verbatim from the July 3, 2014 episode of Days of Our Lives. No excuse but that I thought much of the early writing for those two was so good that there was no need to improve on it._

_As for the 1960s Days history recited by Marie and Julie, well, that was before I was born and before YouTube was born. I did my best to get it right, but you have my apologies for any mistakes. Let's just blame those on Marie and Julie having imperfect memories, shall we?_


End file.
